1. Personalize your phone with custom colors, themed icons, or even emoji backgrounds. One of the best parts about using Android is that you can make your phone a true reflection of your personality. On Samsung devices, tap and hold anywhere on the screen, and then tap Wallpaper and Style > Color Palette. On Pixel devices, you don’t need to open Color Palette; the color groups are below the home-screen preview. The color options change the tint of text and buttons across your device. You can also browse an enormous collection of paid and free themes, some of which include custom app icons, in Google Play or the Samsung Themes menu; just be sure to protect your privacy by avoiding any that have unusual permission requests.
Pixel devices have a feature called the Emoji Workshop, which lets you customize your phone with a colorfully themed emoji background that also briefly changes to lightning bolts when you start charging your phone. You access the Emoji Workshop by tapping More Wallpapers at the bottom of the “Wallpaper and Style” screen.
2. Fix typos without taking your fingers off the keyboard. You can scroll through text easily with your spacebar: Just swipe your thumb left or right across the key to move the cursor through your text and quickly fix any error.
3. Bring back one-handed typing. One extremely valid complaint about modern phones is that they’re too wide and tall to use with one hand. One way to facilitate that is to use the one-handed keyboard: a shrunken-down keyboard that you can position on your screen to type more comfortably. On Pixel devices, tap the four-squares menu in the upper left of your keyboard and select One-handed. On Samsung phones, tap the three dots in the upper right of your keyboard to activate this feature.
4. Use your Samsung phone to charge a friend’s phone. Wireless charging lets you easily juice up your phone without having to futz with cords, but it can also transfer power between devices. Open Settings and then tap Wireless power sharing. Put your phone face down and place any other phone that has wireless-charging capabilities face up on top of your phone. That phone should start charging, using your phone’s battery. You can add a button for this feature to your Quick Settings menu.
5. Quickly access Settings shortcuts with just one swipe. The Quick Settings menu in the notification shade lets you change critical settings, such as toggling your flashlight on and off or muting your phone, with just a tap. Getting there takes two swipes normally, but you have a better way: Use two fingers, preferably together or side by side, and swipe down from the top of your screen instead of making two individual swipes.
Now that you can get to your Quick Settings faster, it’s time to make the menu more functional. On Samsung devices, tap the pencil icon in the upper right and then tap the Edit button under Top or Full. There are dozens of options, so you have plenty of choices.
On Pixel devices, you’ll find the pencil icon in the bottom right. Shortcuts for functions such as screen casting, QR-code scanning, live captioning, or a toggle for using your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot always appear in the notification shade. Pixels also have some unique tools, like shortcuts for amplifying sound and recording audio.
6. Easily share Wi-Fi passwords with a QR code. Sick of carefully spelling out your Wi-Fi password, noting every uppercase and lowercase character? Save time and frustration on Samsung phones by opening Settings, tapping Connections > Wi-Fi, and then tapping the little QR-code icon in the upper right. On Pixel devices, go to Settings then Network & internet > Internet, tap the Wi-Fi network you want to share, and then tap the Share button.
Anyone who scans the QR code, even someone with an iPhone, immediately joins your Wi-Fi network. That’s convenient—just make sure to show it only to people you want on your network.
7. Quickly activate split-screen mode and take screenshots from the app carousel. On a Samsung device, tap the three-lines button to see a scrollable list of all your open apps. Normally you’d use this just to quickly move between apps, but it can do a lot more. Tap the app’s icon at the top of each preview, and you can open two apps in a split-screen view or see the app in a windowed pop-up view mode.
Pixel devices can also enter split-screen view from the app carousel, which you access by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. On these devices, you can also screenshot or copy text from an app directly from the app carousel.
8. Move between your Chrome tabs faster. Most people have way too many tabs open, even on their phones. To quickly jump from one of your tabs to another, simply swipe left or right on the address bar. Swipe down from the address bar in Chrome to see what tabs you have open; then, you can tap any tab to open it, tap and hold to rearrange its spot, or swipe left or right on any tab to close it.
9. Long-press an app icon to see useful shortcuts. Many Android apps offer shortcuts to their core features for you to jump right to what you need. For example, long-pressing Google Maps pulls up your favorite locations, which you can immediately start navigating toward. With Messages, you can start a new conversation or send a text in one of your most recent chats.
10. Share files with Android’s version of Apple’s AirDrop. Android’s Quick Share feature lets you share files between Android devices, Chromebooks, and select Windows PCs. The feature uses Bluetooth or device-to-device Wi-Fi to share content, even if you’re offline. To set it up, go to Settings, search for Quick Share, make your device visible to nearby devices, and select to share with your contacts or everyone nearby (for only 10 minutes).
11. Use Google Lens to identify nearly anything in your photos. The Google Lens icon appears at the bottom of any picture in Google Photos; tap it to do a visual search of the subject, and it will turn up more information, including details on products, animals, or plants. You can also copy text from the image or translate text. Long-press the Home button to access Google’s Circle to Search feature, which does many of the same things.
Samsung’s Gallery app has a similar feature called Bixby Vision, which you access by tapping the eyeball in the upper right of the screen.
12. Hand your phone over safely by locking it to a single app. The next time you loan your phone to a friend “just for a second” or let your kid play their favorite game, use a feature called app pinning to make sure they can use only that one app. To set it up, open Settings, go to the More Security and Privacy menu, scroll down to the bottom, and tap App pinning. A prompt will pop up confirming that the feature is on and explaining what it does. On Samsung devices, open Security and privacy in Settings, tap More security settings, and then toggle on Pin app.
Once the feature is activated, open the app carousel with a short swipe up from the bottom or tap the three-lines button on a Samsung phone. Select the app you want to pin, tap the icon on top of the app to open the menu, and tap Pin. To unpin the app, swipe from the bottom of the screen and hold, or, on Samsung phones, hold the three-lines and back buttons simultaneously; the gesture will prompt your phone to lock, and you will need to use your password, PIN, or biometrics to unlock it.
13. Keep private apps hidden away. Private Space lets you keep apps hidden in a locked section of the apps tray and requires biometrics or a PIN to access them. On a Pixel phone, go to Settings and then tap Security & privacy > Private space. Once you finish setup, you’ll find a new section in your app tray. Apps you install here are fully separated from the rest of your phone, so you can actually have two different versions of an app running at once.
On Samsung phones, navigate to the Security and privacy portion of Settings and then go to More security settings > Secure Folder.
14. Snap photos faster. Double-tap your phone’s power button to launch the camera app, without even unlocking your phone. Pressing the volume-down button snaps a picture, which makes shooting horizontally one-handed much easier. You can also press and hold the volume-down button to start recording video.
15. Easily record your screen. If you need to record your screen, you don’t have to download a separate app to do it. Pull down the notification shade, tap the pencil, find Record screen, and add it to your notification-shade shortcuts. When you want to record your screen, tap that button and then specify whether to record your whole screen or just one app, and if the recording should include audio.
Did we miss something? Share your favorite underappreciated Android feature in the comments.
This article was edited by Caitlin McGarry and Jason Chen.
