The Samsung Galaxy S25, with the power of One UI 7, lets you customize the side button to suit your needs. It can do far more than just turn on your screen or open your camera.
Where Is the Side Button?
By the “side button”, I mean the lower button on the right side of your S25, below the larger volume button. It’s in the same position no matter whether you own the base model, Plus, or Ultra.
You might know it as the “power button”, since this used to be the primary function of the button on older Samsung phones. While you can remap it to that, the power options are easily accessible through the quick settings panel, which you get to by pulling down from the top-right of your screen (assuming you haven’t changed the S25’s default behavior).
What Does the Side Button Do?
By default, the side button has the following behaviors:
- Turn on the phone if you press and hold the button when the phone is off.
- Turn the screen on or off if you press the button briefly.
- Open the camera if you double press the button.
- Open Gemini if you press and hold the button.
It’s these latter two behaviors that you can customize on your S25. While older Samsung phones running One UI 6 offer some flexibility too, like the ability to open a specific app with a double press, it’s taken to the next level with One UI 7.
Simply put, One UI is Samung’s exclusive software that provides features for your phone. Different versions support different features; at the time of writing, the Galaxy S25 is the only phone running One UI 7, but some older devices will be updated to that version in the future. To check your version, go to Settings > About Phone > Software Information.
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How to Customize the Side Button
To begin customizing what your side button does when you press it, open Settings and go to Advanced Features > Side Button. Here, select either “Double Press” or “Long Press” to customize that action.
Double Press
You have the following options for double press:
- Camera
- Torch
- Magnifier
- Voice Recorder
- Samsung Capture
- Modes and Routines
- Apps
Some of these options have a cog next to them, which indicates you can select a specific functionality.
You can tap the “On” slider to disable the double press function entirely.
For example, rather than only being able to open the Camera app in its default mode, you can choose “Record Video”, “Take Portrait”, or “Take Selfie.” Or for Samsung Capture, you can choose between “AI Select”, “Screen Recorder”, or “Screenshots.”
The “Modes and Routines” option is especially powerful, since you can stack multiple actions. For example, you could bind the button to the Sleep routine and customize that to enable do not disturb mode, activate the eye comfort shield, and turn off the Always On Display.
Personally, I’ve gone for opening the camera because it means I can quickly take snaps and not miss a moment.
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Long Press
The options for a long press are limited compared to a double press. They are:
- Digital Assistant
- Bixby
- Power Off Menu
By default, the digital assistant is Google, though you can change this to another provider if you have one installed.
Personally, I’m a bit old school—I don’t need quick access to an AI assistant, so I’ve opted for the power off menu, though I rarely need to use it. I hope One UI 7 evolves so I can bind the long press to something else.
I’m really pleased with my Galaxy S25 and part of that is because of how flexible the software is. I don’t like having buttons on phones that you can’t do anything helpful with (I’m looking at you, Bixby button), so it’s great that Samsung has made the side button customizable without needing third-party apps.
Samsung Galaxy S25
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The Samsung Galaxy S25 is a powerful and compact smartphone with a 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display and a 120Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,000mAh battery with 25W Super Fast Charging.
