5 Good Lock customizations to try before One UI 9

One UI 9, based on Android 17, is Samsung’s next major update, and the stable version will start rolling out soon for the Samsung Galaxy S26 series.

Unless you own a Galaxy S26, a Galaxy Z Fold 8, or a Galaxy Z Flip 8 — the latter two launched with One UI 9 — it’ll probably still be a while before you get it.

However, you can still customize a lot of things on your phone right now, thanks to several new features Samsung added to Good Lock with One UI 8.5. Let’s dive in.

Redesign your quick settings with QuickStar

Just don’t touch the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth buttons

Android has let you rearrange your phone’s quick settings panel for years. And in recent times, you’ve had the option to add, remove, and move around tiles to locations of your choosing.

However, with One UI 8.5, Samsung now lets you resize tiles and reorient sliders to build custom Quick Settings layouts in ways you couldn’t.

But that’s hardly as exciting as what Samsung did with the QuickStar Goodlock module. The most visual inclusion is the ability to add custom images to the backgrounds of your Quick Settings.

I like Samsung’s implementation because it doesn’t use a single image for the whole Quick Settings panel. Instead, you can add individual pictures to the main panel, volume and brightness sliders, media button, and standalone buttons like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

You should probably hold off on that last one.

While setting up my phone, I realized that adding a background image to standalone buttons removes their icons and labels, making it hard to tell what’s what (I couldn’t, not at a glance anyway).

Even if you find a stylish Bluetooth icon to replace your toggle, you’ll still struggle to tell whether it’s on or off.

That’s because turning on a function usually gives the icon an easily recognizable solid fill. However, without the icon, you only get a thin highlight ring, which is hard to see, especially in dark mode.

While hoping Samsung fixes that, I’m still enjoying background images on the other parts of my Quick Settings, and you can too. Here’s how:

1. Open Good Lock, then download and launch QuickStar.
2. Select Edit panel style.
   

   
3. Tap Button box. It’ll open your gallery.
4. Choose an image and tap Apply. Do the same for Media player, Brightness, and Volume.
   

   

To edit standalone buttons, select Buttons from the small pill at the bottom of the screen.

If you choose to add images to your buttons, click Borders on the same pill at the bottom of the screen and flip the toggle next to Show border.

Samsung added a few other quality-of-life improvements to QuickStar. In Advanced settings within QuickStar, you can turn on Show bar levels to see the percentage of your volume and brightness sliders.

You can also turn on Resize panel items to stretch any button to almost any size.

Bring your lock screen and AOD to life with LockStar

You won’t like this if your phone’s animations are off

One UI 8.5 also added new unlock animations to LockStar that change how your phone transitions from the lock screen to the home screen.

My personal favorites are Mosaic, which dissolves the screen into a pixelated pattern, Glitch, which fills the screen with horizontal lines like a faulty screen, and Swirl, which creates a dizzying rotation effect around the center.

You can make the effects more dramatic by changing the animation time, which controls how long the effect lasts, and the Interpolator, which determines how specific parts of the animation behave.

For example, Ease in makes the later part of the animation more dramatic than the beginning, while Ease out makes the beginning more dramatic.

I like Bouncer, which divides the animation time into four to eight parts and adjusts the bounce at decreasing intensity, like an actual bouncing ball. You can also tweak how strong the animation is and how springy the final parts are.

Some animations also have specific customizations, such as Swirl direction and Glitch noise size

I had some issues setting up this Good Lock module. And from my findings, you need to disable Reduced animations in your accessibility settings for it to work.

To use the new lock screen animations:

1. Launch LockStar and tap the LockStar pill at the bottom of the screen.
   

   
2. Select Unlock Animation and flip the toggle to on.
   

   
3. Select your preferred animation type, then tweak the other settings as you like.
4. Tap the back button in the upper-left corner of the screen and select Done in the upper-right corner to save your settings.
   

   

LockStar also lets you manually adjust your always-on display brightness. If you’re like me and only use AOD when your phone is charging, you may not need it. However, if you use it all the time, slightly reducing the brightness could improve your battery life.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Open LockStar and select Always On Display (with the switch option next to it).
   

   
2. Tap AOD Auto Brightness and flip the toggle at the bottom right of the screen to turn it off.
   

   
3. Then, adjust the slider to change the brightness.
4. Tap Done in the upper-right corner to save.
   

The final LockStar upgrade from One UI 8.5 is the ability to add custom text to both your lock and AOD screens. Here’s how:

1. Open LockStar and select Add Text to input text on your home screen.
   

   
2. Tap Always On Display and Add Text to input text on your AOD.
   

   
3. Tap Done in the upper-right corner to save.
   

Customize your app icons with Theme Park

In a way Google’s Material You never could

One UI 8.5 organized Theme Park’s icon-editing section into Shape, Effects, and Icon, and added a new effect: Emboss.

Emboss gives your icons a punched-out look, and it’s highly adjustable. You can tweak the effect strength, how far it extends from the icon edge, and the shadow depth and angle.

However, some of my favorite Theme Park icon changes came in an earlier Good Lock-specific update a few months before One UI 8.5.

It fixed the one issue I’ve had with Google’s Material You since it launched: lack of uniformity. I love the concept of Material You, but I hated that it made my phone look like a patchwork, with some icons taking on the effect and others not.

The Effects tab is where you find the available options. The Basic option lets you choose a single accent that’s similar to Material You. Then, there’s Glass, Gradient, Emboss (mentioned above), and my personal favorite, Duotone, which lets you choose two accents.

To start using Theme Park icon effects:

1. Install and launch the Theme Park app, then select Icon from the bottom panel.
2. Tap the Create new pill at the bottom of the screen and go to Effects.
3. Select an option and customize it to your taste.
   

   

Create intuitive home screen folders with Home Up

You must try this if you use folders

Home Up’s Large Folders is another nifty One UI 8.5 addition. I don’t use it because I don’t like having folders on my home screen, but it’s a powerful addition if you do.

It lets you resize your home screen folders however you please, from wide to tall to covering half of the screen. To use it:

1. Install and launch the Home Up module.
2. Flip the toggle to turn it on and select Home screen.
   

   
3. Scroll to the end of the page and toggle the Large folder switch on.
4. Select Large folder and choose Custom under the size section.
   

   
5. Go to your home screen and long-press the folder you wish to resize.
6. If it’s shrunken, select Enlarge and use the tabs on any corner to resize.
   

   

If you have a lot of apps extending across multiple pages in your home screen folder, Samsung also added a new Page scroll feature that lets you swipe directly to reveal more apps without opening the folder first.

To use it, select Large folder within Home Up’s home screen module and flip the switch next to Page scroll.

Map your gamepad to any title with Game Booster+

Less heat, less battery drain, shorter intros

The headline One UI 8.5 Game Booster+ feature is gamepad mapping. If you play games with a controller, it lets you map your pad’s buttons and sticks to the on-screen controls you choose.

To start using it:

1. Go to the Galaxy Store, download Game Booster+, and grant the required permissions.
2. Go to Gamepad Touch Mapping and select the game you want to configure. It’ll launch the game with a Menu button at the top of your screen.
   

   
3. Tap it to program your Look and Aim joysticks and other buttons.
   

4. When you’re done, click the cog icon to save your changes to a profile. You can create up to 10 profiles for all your games.
   

One UI 8.5 also changed how you tune your in-game performance. Before now, you could only control the GPU usage. Now, you can adjust both GPU and CPU for each game.

Note that this isn’t a boost; rather, it lets you control how much power each game uses. Think of it as a tool to limit certain games for better battery management and less heat, and to let other games run at full power. To use it:

1. Go to CPU and GPU Settings in Game Booster+, and select the game you want to configure.
   

   
2. Under AP clock limitation, select CPU and GPU, and adjust how much your game uses.
3. Tap Save on the pill at the bottom of the screen.
   

   

Samsung also included an option to speed up game intros, so your games can start faster. To use it, open Game Booster+, select Game Intro Fast-Forward, and flip the toggle on.

Start customizing your phone: Don’t wait for One UI 9

There you have it: five Good Lock modules to completely transform how your Samsung Galaxy device looks and acts right now. If you’re new to Good Lock, a beginner’s guide will help you get up to speed.