As Android 12 continues to roll out to more phones, more and more users are finally getting their hands on the suite of improvements and changes in the latest OS upgrade. Alongside things like accessibility and privacy improvements, camera and mic indicators to help indicate when you’re being recorded, and improved smooth motion and animations in the UI, there’s the unavoidable headline act: Material You.
Material You is the all-encompassing name for a host of personalization features within Android 12. It essentially allows you to customize your phone’s theme to match your preferences — and your wallpaper. It helps make your smartphone feel unique to you, and it also just makes for some really pretty home screens. If you’ve just upgraded to Android 12, though, you may be wondering just what you need to do to make the most of Material You’s dynamic theming throughout your OS. So let us guide you through the settings to help you achieve that perfect, personalized look.
These steps outline the process on a Google Pixel phone, but they should be more or less the same on any supported Android phone, save a few choice tweaks to menu names.
Choosing a wallpaper
Material You’s flashy custom themes are based on your home screen wallpaper, so let’s start there. While Material You doesn’t require any specific type of wallpaper to work, if you want your phone’s theme to really pop, try something with vibrant colors. (If you didn’t know, you can change your wallpaper in Settings -> Wallpaper & style.)
I also had a lot of fun mixing and matching different wallpapers for my home and lock screens. Because the lock screen’s theme is always tied to your home screen wallpaper, even if you’re using a different one on your lock screen, this can make for bolder, more interesting color combinations while your phone is locked.
Choosing your Material You theme
To reach the dynamic wallpaper theming settings, go to Settings -> Wallpaper & style.
Under your home and lock screen wallpapers, you’ll see up to four circles filled with different colors (as shown in the second image above). Each of these circles represents a different color scheme that Android 12 has pulled from your current home screen wallpaper. You can tap each of these to then see how the different colors are incorporated into the theme of your smartphone. Once you’ve found the one you like, you’re all done — navigate away, and you’ll see your theme has changed.
If you don’t want to use a custom theme, the Basic colors button on this screen will give you the option to pick from one of four stock theme options: blue, green, purple, or orange.
Themed icons
For those wanting to go all-in on the dynamic theming, there’s also a Themed icons option further down the Wallpaper & style screen. It’s currently in beta, but the setting will change the look of Google’s apps’ icons to fit in with the color scheme you’ve selected based on your wallpaper.
This change only applies on your phone’s home screen; the default icons will still be used in your app drawer.
And there you have it. While Material You tends to pick relatively muted hues, the change is certainly noticeable, altering the color of things like your Quick Settings buttons, your widgets, and even the themes of some entire apps. Now you’re all set to get creative with your wallpaper and theming choices to truly make your smartphone one of a kind.
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