Top 14 Samsung One UI 3 Tips and Tricks You Should Know

When Samsung One UI first debuted in 2018, everyone was awestruck. One UI was a polished improvement over TouchWiz, which was mediocre at best. Samsung One UI 3, which is built on Android 11, has a number of secret features you will love. We’ve compiled a list of the top 14 Samsung One UI 3 tips, tricks, and hidden features.

Note: the following tips are compatible with Samsung Galaxy smartphones running Samsung One UI 3.0 or later. Go to “Settings -> About phone -> Software information -> One UI version” to see your One UI version.

1. Change Notification Pop-Up Style

In the older variants of One UI, the pop-up notification that appeared at the top showed almost the entire notification content. One UI 3 lets you choose between two different notification pop-up styles: Brief and Detailed. While the latter is the older style, Brief is the new variant where you see minimal information about your notification – just a few words and only the latest notification, to be precise. To switch to the Brief style, go to “Settings -> Notifications.” Tap on the Brief selection circle.

Interestingly, you can use a combination of both styles by disabling Brief mode for certain apps. For that, tap the included apps setting that shows up when you select Brief style. Disable the apps for which you want you want to use a detailed style.

2. Customize Brief Notification Style

When you use the Brief notification style, you can take advantage of the edge lighting feature. It lets you customize how the notifications look on your phone. You can change the effect, color, duration, and transparency of the notification.

For that, go to “Settings -> Notifications.” Choose Brief. Tap on “Brief pop-up settings -> Edge lightning style.” Customize the notification style on the next screen to your preferences.

You can even customize notifications according to keywords with the help of the Color by keyword setting present under “Settings -> Notification -> Brief pop-up settings.” When there is a notification containing the selected keyword, it will appear in the chosen color instead of the default color.

3. Check Notification History

One UI 3 enables Android 11’s Notification history feature, which lets you view the dismissed notifications from the past 24 hours. The feature comes extremely handy if you accidentally remove a notification from the notification panel.

You can enable it by going to “Settings -> Notifications -> Advanced settings -> Notification history.” Enable the toggle on the next screen. Navigate to the same screen to view the notification history.

4. Use Notification Bubbles

Samsung already had the Smart pop-up view feature for multitasking. With One UI 3, you get the Android 11’s chat bubbles, too. Suppose you are watching a YouTube video and receive a text message. Instead of opening the Messages app in full screen, bubbles let you view and reply in a floating window without hiding the YouTube app. Similarly, bubbles will help while playing games as well.

To enable bubbles, go to “Settings -> Notifications -> Advanced settings -> Floating notifications.” Select Bubbles.

You will have to enable bubbles separately for the required apps. For that, open “Settings -> Apps.” Tap on the app. Go to “Notifications -> Show as bubbles.” Select All.

5. Pin Apps to Share Menu

You can now pin your favorite apps to the share menu. For instance, if you usually share images from Gallery to WhatsApp, you can pin WhatsApp to the top of the share menu. That way you don’t need to find WhatsApp in the list of the apps when you press the share icon. It will be ready to serve you at the top.

To pin an app, press the Share icon in any app. When the list of apps shows up, touch and hold the app you want to pin. Tap Pin from the menu.

You cannot pin a separate set of apps for different apps. The pinned apps will be used across apps and can be identified by a pin icon next to them.

6. Turn off Screen with Double Tap Gesture

You no longer need to press the Power button or use a third-party gestures app to quickly lock the screen. With One UI 3, you can turn off the screen by simply double-tapping an empty space on the home screen.

The feature is enabled by default. If you want to disable the feature, or it doesn’t work, navigate to “Settings -> Advanced Features -> Motions and gestures.” Enable the toggle for Double tap to turn off the screen.

7. Change Call Screen Background and Layout

You get a really cool customization feature for call screen in One UI 3 that lets you customize the call screen’s background and layout. Open the Phone app and tap on the three-dot icon at the top. Select Settings from the menu. Tap on Call background.

You will find two options: Layout and Background. With the former, you can customize how the name and number appears on the screen, and the second one lets you use a custom background image or 15-second video. The customizations will be applied to both incoming and outgoing call screens.

8. Enable Google Discover Feed

Very few launchers support the Google Discover feed on the home screen. One UI Launcher has been added to the same list with One UI 3. Now when you swipe right from the first home screen on your Samsung Galaxy phone, you can access the Google feed.

To enable it, go to the first page on your home screen. Touch and hold an empty space on the home screen. When you see various customization options – like Themes, Widgets, etc. – at the bottom, swipe right. You will see Google Discover and Samsung Free cards. Enable the top toggle first. Then select Google Discover. You can also go with Samsung Free or use none by turning off the top toggle.

9. Use Trash in Samsung Messages

In case you accidentally delete a chat from the Samsung Messages app, it can be restored using the app’s Trash feature. Trash was already present in other Samsung apps such as Gallery, Contacts, etc. It works in the same way where the deleted chats stay in Trash for 30 days, after which they get deleted permanently.

To access Trash in the Samsung Messages app, tap on the three-dot icon at the top. Select Trash. You can restore or permanently delete messages from Trash.

10. Use New and Advanced Search

If you never bothered to use the Finder search feature on your Samsung phone, it’s time to take a look at it again. You will like it for the enhanced search features that One UI 3 brings to Finder. Thanks to that, you now find settings and search suggestions in it apart from apps and contacts.

11. Autocrop Screenshots

One UI 3 brings an interesting feature related to screenshots. When you capture a screenshot and edit it using the native Edit option, the new feature auto-detects if there is a smaller photo within the screenshot. A dotted square icon will appear on the smaller photo. Tap on it to auto-crop the smaller photo.

Also read: How to Use S Pen Like a Pro on Samsung Galaxy Phones

12. Continue on Other Devices

If you use multiple Samsung Galaxy devices, you may want to take advantage of the Continue apps on other devices feature. With the feature enabled, you can continue using apps like Samsung Notes and Samsung Internet browser on a different device from where you left off on the first device. The feature also lets you copy text, images, etc. on one Samsung phone and paste them to another.

To use this feature, go to “Settings -> Advanced features.” Tap on Continue apps on the other devices. Enable the feature.

13. Customize Power Key

Earlier present on high-end Samsung Galaxy handsets, you can now assign a new function to the Power button on all phones running One UI 3. Go to “Settings -> Advanced features -> Side key” to assign an app to the Power button when you double press it.

14. Show Refresh Rate

If you are keen on knowing the refresh rate of your Samsung phone for different apps, you have to enable the “Show refresh rate” feature from the Developer options.

First, you will need to enable Developer options on your phone. For that, go to “Settings -> About phone -> Software information.” Tap on Build number seven times until you see the “You are now a developer” message at the bottom of the screen.

Go back to Settings. Scroll down and tap on Developer options. Look for Show refresh rate. Enable the toggle next to it.

With every new update, One UI is becoming more sophisticated and useful as you saw above. Further, to make various settings easily identifiable by users, One UI 3 has renamed them and used more descriptive names. For instance, Smart Stay and Smart Alert have been renamed to “Keep screen on while viewing” and “Alert when phone picked up” in “Settings -> Advanced settings.”

If you like the above Samsung One UI 3 tips, you might love the general Android tips with regard to customization. Find out how to set custom icons and how to customize the lock screen on Android.