Tricks for Samsung Galaxy phones. You definitely don't know everyone yet

The smartphones we carry around in our pockets are very powerful devices, and we rarely take advantage of all that they offer - or rather, few users take advantage of all that they offer. Every phone has "hidden features" that are hard for the user to come across if they don't play with it a bit. Samsung Galaxy phones are no exception to this.

Some features are definitely ones that you know about, then there are those that we underestimate but are actually great, and then there are those that we don't get our hands on and few have heard of.

Voice commands and gestures for selfies

Do you want to do it yourself, but you don't know how to go about it? Can't capture a wider frame because the arm is suddenly too short? No problem. You can place the phone on the base and tell it by voice when to take a picture. Of course, you can also set a timer, but you know what it's like to rush and count down those seconds.

Open your phone's camera and click on the settings gear. Somewhere near the bottom is the Recording Modes option. Tap it and you can already indicate that the camera is triggered when you show your palm or when you say "Smile", "Cheese", "Shoot", Capture" voice commands. For video, just say “Record Video”. It might take a little practice, but the thing works.

Create a secure folder

Did you know that you can create your own safe on Samsung Galaxy phones that no one can access - except you. Everyone has some documents or pictures on their phone that they want to hide. How do we do it?

Go to Settings, then Security & Privacy and More security settings. At the top, click the Secure Folder option. You can set how it is protected (password, pin, fingerprint...), you can add it to the screen with applications and the like. It is treated as a separate space in the phone, to which you can transfer documents or create them directly in it.

Putting anything you'd like to protect into this folder is an extra layer of protection that never hurts – whether it's a banking app or a picture you don't want anyone else to see.

Turn off animations and speed up your phone

Animations on the phone add to the experience, but for some they can be annoying. On the other hand, they also put a strain on the system. Check this option if you feel animations are slowing down your phone. Go to Settings again, scroll to Accessibility, tap on it, and then tap on Vision and Hearing Improvements. That's where the Decrease animations toggle is located. Simply turn the feature on and turn it off the same way if you change your mind.

Customize the app grid

In the editorial office, we always have a problem because there is not enough space on the phone screens. We want to have everything on the first screen and at hand, and the app grid fills up quickly. But there is a simple solution to increase the number of applications on the screen.

Hold your finger on an empty spot on the home screen, then tap the Settings gear and customize the home screen grid and app grid. There you can set a grid of 4×5, 4×6, 5×5, 5×6… the choice is yours.

Lock your home screen layout

Do you also entrust your phone to children (or adults, after all) and when you get it back, the apps on the home screen are moved, two are missing and so on? You can easily avoid this by locking the home screen layout.

To do this, hold your finger again on an empty space of the home screen and go to Settings. There you can lock the layout (Home Screen Layout Lock) on the toggle switch and forget about anyone ever ruining the layout you're used to.

Swipe call and message

This feature has been a part of One UI for quite some time, but we admit that we didn't know about it either, and we've already passed through a lot of phones. Until you start using it, you don't even realize how useful it is.

You simply go to the contact directory or the list of recent contacts. After the desired contact, swipe to the right for a call and to the left for a message. Simple and effective. And we don't know why we didn't know this before.

Blink of the flash or screen when you receive a notification

Why would you need it? Let's say you don't want your phone to alert you loudly of a message, but you also don't want it to vibrate. The solution is lighting effects.

Click on Settings, then Accessibility and Advanced Settings. There tap on Flashing notification. You can choose between a camera flash notification or a screen lighting notification. Or you choose both.

Shortcuts on the side button

Your phone's side button isn't just for locking and shutting down your device. You can save your favorite shortcut on it, which will be just two clicks away from now on. Quick access is easy and once you get used to it, really useful. It can launch a camera, a flashlight, a specific application - you are almost unlimited with different options. For example, set the button to launch the application with a double tap.

Again we go to Settings and Advanced features and the Side button. Here we set what should happen when double-clicked, we can choose from countless options. We can also choose what happens if we hold down the key, but here there are only two options: Wake up Bixby and Power off menu.

Wake screen without side key

Did you know that you can also wake up the screen without the side button. It has proven to be useful for us when we have the phone on the table next to the keyboard and we just want to look at something quickly.

Click on Settings and Advanced Features and Gestures and Gestures. Turn on the Double tap to turn on screen feature. You can also enable the Double tap to turn off screen feature separately. Or, for example, Lift to wake up, which turns on the screen when you pick up the phone.

Turn the phone over when you want peace of mind

You want to have peace of mind when someone calls you or your alarm goes off. You can easily silence the phone by turning it over. On an incoming call, this will not end the call, it will only silence the ringer. An old but good trick. Thought your phone couldn't handle it? Of course he does.

The function can be found in Settings, click again on Advanced functions, then Motions and gestures and Mute with gestures. Not only does the feature work if you turn the phone over, but you can also just place your palm on it - and it will give you peace of mind.

How do you take screenshots?

Another one of the old but most useful tricks. We take screenshots all the time, share them with friends, family... you have two options on Samsung Galaxy phones, so you can use the one you prefer. The first is to press the power button and the volume down button at the same time. But there is another, more intuitive way, namely to slide the side of your palm across the screen. It works both from the left edge to the right side and vice versa.

If you don't have the option turned on, go to Settings, Advanced Features, Motions and Gestures, Swipe with the bottom of your palm to capture.

Full drop down menu with one swipe

This feature is easy. We don't know how often you'll actually use it, but you probably didn't know about it anyway. We all know the drop-down menu, accessed by swiping down from the top edge of the phone. There we turn off and on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, data transfer, silence the phone and there are many other options. When we swipe down, a few options open up. If we do this again, an extended menu will open that we can customize and the like. If you use the expanded menu often, you can do it with a single swipe - only this time with two fingers at the same time. Interesting and, we believe, useful for many.

Document scanner

Scan documents right from your phone. The scanner isn't perfect and can't compare to a printer with a built-in scanner, but when you're in a hurry and don't have another device handy, it's the perfect solution.

Open the Camera app and point the camera at the document you want to scan. A yellow icon with the letter T appears in the corner. After the sheet is scanned, you can just save the image, and the Search options appear where you can adjust the margins; Add to notebook, where the phone writes the text you scanned into another document (Notebook); and also Copy all.

Lift the object from the photo

With One UI 5.1, Samsung introduced a great new feature that will spice up playing with photos. If you press or hold your finger on the object in the photo for a long time, it separates from it, then several options appear: you can copy it, share it, save it as a sticker.

Play around with photos in some other way

Are reflections ruining your picture? Samsung makes sure you get rid of them with just a few taps. You can also easily delete an object from an image. Open the image in the Gallery, click on it and the pencil icon (Edit), then select the four circles on the far right. There, among other things, we find the Object Eraser. If we click on it and then on the object we want to remove, we simply delete it. We can also remove shadows and reflections.