Although Samsung’s One UI skin has been around for years, it got a major facelift with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S22 series earlier this year. One UI 4 is Samsung’s most refined UI to date, with improved privacy features and lots of customization options. And while Samsung’s Good Lock and dozens of custom launchers will let you completely transform your phone’s home screen, many people will find customization options in Android 12 and One UI 4 to be more than enough.
Whether you are coming from an iPhone or just from a different Android brand, Samsung One UI 4 will let you configure your phone in a way that’s perfect for you. Here’s some of our favorite tips and tricks to get you started.
1. Disable the app drawer to add apps directly to the home screen.
Are you looking to move from iPhone to Samsung? You might not be fond of using an app drawer to glance through installed apps. Samsung offers an option to put all your apps directly on the home screen.
- Long-tap a blank area on your home screen and look at the options near the bottom.
- Select Settings to access the home screen settings menu.
- Tap on Home screen layout and select Home screen only.
Go back to the home screen, and you will see all your apps appearing right on it. The swipe-up gesture won’t open the app drawer anymore. Instead, it will launch search, helping you find apps and files on the phone.
2. Choose Google Discover of the Samsung Free Panel when you swipe right
In the past, when you swiped right on the home screen, you’d see the Samsung Free panel. To be blunt, Samsung Free was a poor alternative to Google Discover, and it looks like Samsung finally gave in with the Galaxy S22; swipe right on one of the latest flagships and you’ll see Google Discover. If you’re a fan of Samsung Free or just want to see your options, you can swap the two out. Here’s how to switch between Google Discover and Samsung Free.
- Long-press on your Samsung phone’s home screen and swipe right to the media page.
- Select Google Discover or disable the toggle to remove the media page entirely.
3. Apply your preferred color palette
Samsung adopted Android 12’s Material You with the One UI 4 update. You can choose a color palette based on your wallpaper and get a uniform look on the home screen and in system apps.
- Swipe down to reveal the notification center. Tap on the Settings gear at the top of the screen.
- Select Wallpaper and style and tap on Color palette.
- Select one of the color palettes and check the live preview.
You can also apply a palette to app icons with the options below the color palettes. Hit the Done button once you are satisfied and enjoy a fresh look on your Samsung home screen.
When you apply a color palette to app icons, it will only modify the system apps’ look. Third-party app icons, including Google apps, remain unaffected.
4. Disable the Samsung Pay gesture
Ignore every other tip in this guide if you like, but this is one step you’ll want to follow. Put short, Samsung Pay’s swipe up gesture is infuriating and, if you’re like 99% of Samsung owners, you’ll find yourself accidentally triggering the tap-to-pay feature at least once a day. Lucikly you can mitigate the annoyance caused by Samsung’s UX lapse, by disabling the Samsung Pay gesture from the home screen.
- Open the Samsung Pay app and tap on the hamburger menu in the top left corner.
- Select the Settings gear at the top.
- In the Payment section, select Quick access and default card.
- Disable the Home screen toggle (if you want to completely disable Samsung Pay, disable the Screen Off and Lock Screen toggles as well.)
From now on, the swipe-up gesture won’t trigger Samsung Pay on your phone.
5. Hide unwanted apps
Do you want to keep selected apps hidden on your Samsung phone? You can easily do so from the home screen settings.
- Go to the system settings and open the Home screen menu.
- Tap on Hide apps and select apps that you want to hide.
Tap on Done at the bottom and the selected apps will no longer appear on the home screen and in the app drawer. Parents can use this trick to hide YouTube or other addictive games from little ones at home, though a supervised Google account might be the better option for a kid’s phone.
6. Disable adding new apps to the home screen
Sometimes, we spend hours to get the perfect home screen look on our phones, carefully choosing which apps are accessible on which page. And then we install new apps from the Play Store, and they end up appearing on the home screen, spoiling an ideal setup. You can tweak some settings to keep your home screen unchanged.
- Launch the system settings and go to Home screen.
- Disable the Add new apps to Home screen toggle.
From now on, you need to access the app drawer to find newly installed apps on your phone.
You can easily delete extra home screen pages, if you prefer a more streamlined user experience. Here’s all to get rid of extranous home screen pages.
- Long-tap on a blank section of your home screen to go into the editing mode.
- Swipe to check other home screen pages. Tap on the delete icon at the top to remove any pages you don’t need and confirm your decision.
Samsung borrowed this one from Apple’s book. Smart Widgets allow you to stack up widgets on top of each other. That way, you can save space and use multiple widgets on a single home screen. Sounds familiar? This is exactly what Apple did with Smart Stacks in the iOS 14 update. Samsung has introduced Smart Widgets with the One UI 4.1 update and as of now, it’s only available on the S22 series. Check the video above to see Smart Widgets in action.
9. Explore the theme store
You can completely customize your Samsung phone’s look and feel with the theme store.
- Long-tap on the Samsung home screen and select Themes.
- Go through themes, wallpapers, icons, and AODs (Always On Displays) and implement them to your Samsung phone.
10. Use Gesture Navigation
It’s 2022 and Samsung is still shipping phones with navigation buttons. Every other Android OEM defaults to gesture navigation out of the box or at least asks if you’d prefer gestures or buttons. Here’s how you can ditch navigation buttons and opt for gestures in One UI.
- Open the Settings app on your Samsung phone.
- Go to Display and select Navigation bar.
- Tap on Swipe gestures and the navigation buttons will disappear at the bottom.
11. Enable one-handed mode
While Samsung did a splendid job optimizing One UI for one-handed use, sometimes you might need to stretch your thumb to reach certain parts of the display. Here’s where Samsung’s one-handed mode jumps in and temporarily shrinks the screen for easy accessibility.
Swipe down close to the bottom of your screen, and you will see one-handed mode kicking in. You can use the top bar to move around the window. Once you are done, double-tap on the side arrow to disable one-handed mode.
If you are using navigation buttons, you need to double-tap on the home button to enable one-handed mode.
12. Sort apps in alphabetical order
Samsung uses some custom order when placing app icons in the app drawer. You might have a hard time finding the one you are looking for due to that. Let’s sort them in alphabetical order instead. Shall we?
- Open the app drawer and tap on the three-dot icon at the top.
- Tap on Sort and select Alphabetical order.
14. Customize Finder settings
Samsung Finder can be a cumbersome experience for some. Instead of quickly finding apps, the Finder may end up showing search suggestions from downloads, settings, and screenshots.
- From the app drawer, tap on the search bar at the top.
- Select the three-dot menu beside it and go to Settings.
- Disable irrelevant toggles and you are good to go.
14. Change notification pop-up style
Starting with the Galaxy S8 series, Samsung introduced a new notification pop-up style that gives a brief alert banner at the top without revealing too many details.
- Open the system settings and go to the Notifications menu.
- Select Brief.
Once you change the notification pop-up style to Brief, you can go to Brief pop-up settings and apply Edge lighting style as well.
From now on, whenever you receive a notification, you will see a brief pop-up at the top. Check the screenshot below for reference.
Bonus: Apply custom launcher
Not everyone likes Samsung’s take on Android. Some may not prefer how the folders look while others may dislike the horizontal app drawer.
You can go with some of the best third-party app launchers like Nova or Action from the Play Store and change the look of the home screen and app drawer in One UI. With a custom launcher, you can also integrate third-party app icon packs from the Play Store pretty easily (something that’s a bit of a process with Samsung’s launcher). Do note that Android’s gesture navigation might not work flawlessly with a custom launcher on your Samsung phone, though for most recent phones, this should no longer be an issue.
In the past, the software experience used to be Samsung’s weakest link (hello, TouchWiz). The situation is completely turned around now.
Samsung has nailed it with One UI customization options. Go ahead, use the tips above and create the perfect home screen experience on your phone. Once you’ve customized your phone, you may want to dig in and learn about some of the cool things you can do in the Samsung Gallery app.
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