Samsung Galaxy phones among all Android phones have a separate fan base especially because of its exclusive and highly customizable Android skin One UI. It has many useful features, that are unnoticeable by average Samsung Galaxy users. That’s why, In this post, I will uncover some of the unknown and very useful Samsung Galaxy tricks and hidden features that can help you get the most out of your Samsung Galaxy device.
10 Samsung galaxy tricks and hidden features
1. YouTube Integrated into Samsung keyboard
Samsung keyboard is arguably one of the best Android keyboards out there with many built-in handy features. This is one useful feature that lets you access YouTube with the keyboard and share YouTube video links on any messaging app with anyone without having to navigate to the YouTube app. All you need to do is…
- Open up your keyboard on any messaging app.
- Tap on three horizontal dots to open up more options.
- Tap on the YouTube quick access button.
- Now you can see the popular YouTube videos and history, and also you can manually search for YouTube videos on your keyboard.
- You can also paste any YouTube video’s link from here on any messaging app by tapping on it.
- To play any video on YouTube from here, tap on the arrow at the extreme right end of the video.
Also Read: How to clear the cache on Android all at once
2. Extract Text From Images With the Samsung keyboard
Now you don’t even need to launch the camera app to scan and extract text from images.
- Launch the keyboard on any messaging app where you want to paste the extracted text.
- Tap on three horizontal dots to open up more options.
- Find the “extract text” option and tap on it.
- As soon as you tap on it, the camera will be launched through the keyboard.
- Point it to the image, paper, or document you want to extract the text from.
- Tap on the text you want to scan and copy.
- You can then paste the copied text anywhere on your device including any messaging app by tapping the paste button.
3. Extra Dim
As with every other Android phone, Galaxy phones also let you adjust the brightness of your phone screen. But even the minimum brightness could hurt your eyes when you stare at your screen for long durations at night. That’s when this hidden feature comes to the rescue, which allows you to reduce the brightness of your screen lower than you can achieve by default settings. To do that…
- Open your settings.
- Open accessibility settings.
- Open visibility enhancements.
- Tap on the “extra dim” option.
- Adjust the intensity of the dim as you prefer and enable the extra dim option.
If you want to make your screen more dimmer, follow this guide.
4. Background Video Play
Using Samsung’s built-in video player, you can play any video in the background even with your phone’s screen locked, So you will be able to listen to the audio of any video with your screen locked. To do that…
- Play any video file on the default video player through my files or gallery.
- Tap on vertical three dots to open more options.
- Tap on “background play on”
5. Boost/Limit Your Phone’s Volume
If you use Bluetooth earphones, then you must be aware of the fact that every time you connect your Bluetooth earphones with your phone, the media volume turns up to maximum or more than what’s recommended causing loud sounds to blow up in your ear when you play any media without noticing the volume. That’s neither good for your ears nor your user experience. This problem can be solved with this hidden feature. All you need to do is…
- Open the settings
- Tap on sounds and vibrations.
- Tap on Volume.
- Tap on three vertical dots at the top right corner of the screen and tap on the media volume limit.
- Now enable it and adjust the volume level to your preference, so nothing will be able to crank up your media volume beyond that level.
6. Floating Shutter Button
Taking selfies with a big display phone is not a comfortable task for all users, especially those with small fingers. That’s when this smart feature comes in handy. It lets you have an additional floating shutter button that can be placed anywhere on the screen for easy reach, so you can tap on it comfortably to capture a selfie or a picture. To get it…
- Launch your camera.
- Tap on camera settings.
- Tap on shooting methods.
- Enable the “floating shutter button” option.
7. Tablet Mode on Samsung
With this next hidden feature, you can turn your phone into a tablet, and use the apps and everything on your phone in tablet mode. To turn your phone into a tablet.
- Head over to the developer options
- Scroll down and find “minimum width” under the drawing section.
- This minimum width varies from phone to phone. For my phone, it’s 384.
- You just tap on it and increase it to either 612 or 712. You can always get back to the normal UI by typing in the default value. So, remember the default value and replace it with a big number.
- For instance, set it to 612 and hit ok.
As soon as you hit ok, the UI will change, the screen will try to accommodate as much info as it can, the font will get smaller, and even most of the apps will follow the tablet mode as shown. Some of you may find your phone lagging in tablet mode. If you see some lag, then set Windows animation, transition animation, and Animator duration scale to 0.5x, and If the font is too small to read, then increase the font size in display settings. It’s an easy and fun way to use your phone as a tablet. Try it, and let us know what you think.
8. Smart Search With the Universal Search Bar
If you use the default One UI home, then you must be aware of the fact that the universal search bar can be used to search for apps and settings of your Samsung phone. But do you know that you can also search for your media files directly from here without typing file names? Well, if you don’t, here’s how to do it.
- Pull up the search bar and type the thing that’s there in the picture you are looking for.
- For instance, if you are looking for pictures or videos featuring a dog, then type dog in the search bar.
- As soon as you search for the word dog, you will be shown pictures and videos that feature dogs.
- Similarly, if you type sunset, it shows up the images featuring the sunset.
So, whenever you need to find a particular photo or a video that features a particular thing like an animal, object, or vehicle, you could simply type it in the search bar and find it effortlessly instead of going through the entire gallery.
9. Lock Media Albums in the Gallery
This is one of the very useful Samsung Galaxy tricks and hidden features that allows you to lock albums on your Samsung gallery without the need for any third-party app. All you need to do is…
- Open your photo albums in the Samsung gallery.
- Tap on the hamburger menu at the top right bottom of the screen.
- Tap on settings.
- Tap on About gallery.
- Tap multiple times on the version numerous to enable Gallery Labs.
- Again go to the gallery settings where you’ll find the Gallery Labs option right under “About gallery”.
- Tap on Gallery Labs and enable the “Album entry locks” option.
- Now exit and relaunch the gallery.
That’s It. Now go to your albums, long press on any album, tap on three dots, and then tap on “Lock album” to lock any album. You’ll be asked for authentication whenever you try to access the locked album.
Note: It locks the photos/media only when you open them in the Samsung gallery. All other apps such as My Files, Google Photos, etc can access the contents without authentication.
10. Select Multiple Files Quicker
You know how to select multiple files at once on your Samsung phone. That is, by long pressing on any file and then tapping on the “all” button at the top left corner of the screen. And if you want to select random files, you have to select each file manually. But if you want to select a short segment of a long list of files, there’s a much faster way to do that.
All you have to do is just long press on one file and scroll down as much as you want to select the files or folders on the way. And you can scroll back up to deselect the files if you think you’ve gone past the list. So now, you don’t have to tap on each file individually to select a bunch of continuous lists.
Wrapping up
So those are some of the best unknown Samsung Galaxy tricks and hidden features that are useful to every Samsung Galaxy user. I hope you learned something from this post. Let me know what you think, and also suggest some more unknown Samsung hidden features in the comments if you know of any.
