I wish more people knew about these 7 hidden Android features

I wrote about Android smartphones for years, so I know many tricks and hidden features that can improve the user experience. At the same time, thanks to complex menus and different menus, I constantly learn about features that I did not pay attention to. Android skins.

After discovering these features, I feel like a street preacher sharing the good news about Android optimization. And today I’m here to share the most useful buried features that I wish more people knew about.

You can see the permissions each app can access in your app settings, but Android has a built-in privacy panel that lets you easily digest this information at a glance. A useful graph highlights the permissions apps have acquired in the last 24 hours. You can also see a summary of specific permissions and which apps have accessed them over the last day.

This dashboard has helped me revoke permissions I’ve accidentally granted in the past. For example, I realized that X (Twitter) has a contact permission that I don’t remember giving. It also pointed out several other apps that were unnecessarily accessing my contacts.

You can go here to access the privacy panel Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy panel. In Samsung One UI, the steps are slightly different. you will have to go to Settings > Security & privacy > Permissions used in the last 24 hours. However, Samsung’s version lacks the handy graphics.

Most of the time, when someone asks me to join their home Wi-Fi network, they give me a username and password. But there’s an even simpler way to let others join your network – by sharing an easily generated QR code.

The exact process depends on the brand of smartphone you’re using – some automatically display the QR code when you select the network sharing option on your phone, while others require you to select it as the sharing method. But the main steps are usually to go to your Wi-Fi settings and access the sharing options of the current network.

On Samsung Galaxy phones, for example, you have to go Settings > Connections > Wi-Fi and then select gear icon next to your current network. There is a button for this at the bottom of the screen QR code.

To scan a QR code using your device, you must also go to your Wi-Fi settings and select the scan icon. This means you don’t have to worry about using Google Lens, your phone’s camera, or a QR code scanning app.

I usually carry a lot of phones with me, either as part of the reviews I do or because I’m playing Pokémon Go. But rather than having a SIM for each, I use one data SIM – either in my main phone or travel router.

However, I quickly ran into a problem with this privacy-focused approach. My connected phones treated my hotspot as a regular Wi-Fi connection, meaning they quickly used up my limited data plan. I could set a hotspot limit, but that wouldn’t solve the issue of one phone using up my entire package for a month, updating the OS when connected.

That’s when I discovered the option make a dimensional connection. The option makes your phone’s network look like a mobile network and limits its data usage. This setting is especially missing on my HONOR smartphone, you can install it on other devices.

For example, on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, you can open the settings for the Wi-Fi network, select See more select the drop-down menu and then click on it Measured network. Set the option to Treat it as measured for your phone to treat it as a cellular network.

It’s no secret that Android is a mess of menus and settings that can be difficult to navigate. The ability to search your settings makes it easy to find things, but even so, some items may not appear, for example for your settings default launcher.

This confusion gets even more confusing when switching between devices with different Android skins. For example, my Samsung device has eye comfort settings in the display settings, but my HONOR smartphone has a dedicated menu for all eye care features.

That’s why this trick is one of my favorites. If you have a specific setting in your Quick Settings — the icons in the control panel that you access when you swipe down on your phone’s screen — you can use it as a shortcut to access and customize a feature. Usually people just use it to toggle settings on and off, but if you hold down the icon, it will take you to the settings page for that feature.

This means your Do Not Disturb icon isn’t just for turning the feature on and off. If you want to adjust your schedule, for example, you can tap and hold the icon to access its settings. Pressing and holding the Eye Comfort icon takes me to a page where I can set its temperature and adjust other settings. This trick means you spend less time searching through menus or searching for specific terms.

Call me old fashioned but I believe you should be able to turn off your phone with the power button. It’s in the name. But in recent years, this button has become a shortcut for Gemini. You can already access the AI ​​tool using your voice and its wake word, but Google decided another shortcut was needed and ordered the power button.

If you’re like me and don’t need a physical button for your Gemini, you can actually change what the power button does. This setting is buried in different places depending on your smartphone brand. My S26 Ultra review section is below it Settings > Advanced features > Side button > Long press. This allows you to switch it to another assistant or to the power menu.

On HONOR devices, the setting is in the accessibility settings. you can go Settings > Accessibility features > Shortcuts and gestures > Press and hold the Power key. If you’re having trouble finding settings on your device, I recommend searching for “power button” in your settings.

When you set up your phone, you get a default set of Quick Settings icons enabled. If your phone’s setup wizard didn’t take you through any customization, the panel may be full of features you’ve never used.

But you can adjust your Quick Settings so that the features you use most often come to the fore. Depending on the apps you have installed, you may also discover a number of new Quick Settings. For example, Home Assistant gives me access to a number of Quick Settings shortcuts that I can configure with the service. TickTick also has an Add Task tile that I can use.

To access the panel’s customization menu, go to and select your Quick Settings pencil icon. Then choose Edit or Add a tile To select and change shortcuts available in the Quick Settings section. You can also drag and drop shortcuts to adjust their order on the panel.

Notifications used to be a useful way to keep up with important updates from apps, but have become a way for companies to relentlessly force engagement. This is most insidious when it comes to apps that you want to get a few notifications for, but send a bunch of irrelevant updates.

For example, I want to receive notifications when my Uber Eats order is on its way. But I rarely order food, so notifications about special offers and promotions are useless to me. This is where the notification channels come from.

Notification channels are groups of notifications in an app that can be disabled individually. So for an app like Uber Eats, I can mute promotions while getting important delivery updates. The downside is that although all notifications should be assigned to a channel starting with Android 8, not all developers do this honestly. I found a number of apps that only had one channel and no way to configure notifications within the app.

For apps that allow you to manage your notifications, you can access their channels on the app information page. To access it, go here Settings > Apps > Manage apps > (App name) > Notifications. On this page you should see different channels below Notification type.

Since notification channel management is not enabled by default, Samsung makes this setting even more difficult to use. Go here first to activate it Settings > Notifications > Advanced settingsand turn it on Manage notification categories for each app. Next, go here to access notification channels for a specific app Settings > Apps > (App name) > Notifications > Notification categories. Here you can change the specific categories you want to enable or disable.

If you’re not sure which channel the notification is for, you can wait for it to appear on your home screen. Depending on your smartphone, either tap and hold the notification or swipe left to access the notification settings. This takes you to the notification channels page with the corresponding category flashing.

While not perfect, it can go a long way to getting your notifications under control.

Android phones don’t always do the best job of revealing the most useful tricks and settings. Plus, the open-source nature of the OS means that each brand builds its version of the software differently.

I feel like I’m always finding new tricks that optimize the way I use my phone. I wish Android made it easier to access them so they weren’t hidden gems.