Learn how to activate One UI on your Samsung Galaxy phone with this easy step-by-step guide. Enhance your user experience in just a few simple steps!

Manufacturers of mobile devices running the Android operating system usually have their own version of the system, a customized layer to offer a user interface with its own design and, in addition, some configuration options, both basic and advanced, that take full advantage of Android’s potential, but in their own way.

One UI is Samsung’s version for its Galaxy devices, both mobile phones and tablets , and among all the layers it is one of the ones I enjoy the most, along with the purest Android that we see in the Google Pixel, since it does not have a distinctive look and many settings to customize the system and take advantage of what the mobile can do, especially if we are talking about foldable mobiles.

If you own a Samsung Galaxy phone and want to take advantage of the possibilities of One UI, there are some features and tweaks you probably don’t know about that you could use . Here are some of my favorites:

Dark mode that activates automatically only when I want it

Dark mode is something that allows you to make the most of the OLED screens on devices that have them, save battery and even help give our eyes a rest in low-light conditions.Personally, depending on the phone I’m using, I usually opt to use dark mode permanently. But if you prefer light mode and only activate dark mode at night, you can let the phone do it for you .

Just follow these steps:

• Access the settings menu of your Samsung Galaxy mobile and then go to the Display section
• Next, we click on Dark mode settings
• And finally, we choose the dark mode programming

We can configure the dark mode to activate automatically from dusk to dawn, to use it only at night, or specifically configure the hours in which the dark mode will be active, for example, in my case, I usually program between 8:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.

More privacy for notifications

The lock screen on Samsung Galaxy phones offers quick access to important information, such as the time or even notifications. However, it is not recommended that the content of notifications be visible on the lock screen , as this poses a privacy risk. After all, if the phone is locked, we do not want someone else to be able to read the content of a message or the subject of an important email.

To avoid this, we follow these steps:

• Access the mobile settings menu and then the Notifications section
• Then, we press on Lock screen notifications
• Finally, we select Hide content

However, we can be even more specific if we want: we can choose to “show content” but specifically configure which apps we want to display information on the lock screen, for example, Maps or the Samsung Health app; you can choose as many as you want.

Read deleted WhatsApp messages and other things,

Samsung Galaxy phones, like other Android devices, have a feature called Notification History that essentially keeps track of the notifications that the device receives. This is useful for situations like when you accidentally delete a notification and don’t know what it was.

And it is also possible to use this feature to view a deleted WhatsApp message , as it is recorded in the history. But remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

To activate the notification history, follow these steps:

• Access the mobile settings menu and then the Notifications section
• Then, press on Advanced Settings
• Next we access Notification History and, finally, we activate it

From now on, this feature will keep track of notifications. To see the log, we must access this section again .

Reply to notifications in floating windows

Yes, it is the third feature on this list related to notifications, but there are many possibilities in One UI for greater control and more functionality of notifications , these are functions that, in my case, I constantly take advantage of.

This time we will talk about floating notifications . With this feature we can quickly reply to a message or some other notification on a floating window without having to leave the application we are using: for example, if we are watching a video on YouTube and we receive a message on WhatsApp, we can quickly reply with the video in the background.

Follow these steps to activate the feature:

• Access the mobile settings menu and then the Notifications section
• Then, we press on Advanced Settings and then select Floating Notifications
• Finally, we choose Smart Pop-up View and activate it

In the tab below this option we can configure exactly which applications will use this function. Personally I find it very useful for responding to messages quickly , but you can choose almost any app.

Save battery by suspending applications

If you install a lot of apps, and these apps are updated occasionally in the background, this consumes more battery on your device. We often install apps that we rarely use; we don’t want to delete them from our phone, but we also don’t want them to consume battery if we’re not using them.

One UI can put the apps you use the least to sleep if you want. Follow these steps:

• Access the settings menu and then the Battery section
• Tap on Background Usage Limits
• Finally, activate the option Suspend unused applications

Even with this feature enabled, you can prevent specific apps from being suspended if you wish, as well as check which apps are suspended.

Bonus: customize quick settings to the maximum

With the arrival of One UI 7, Samsung Galaxy devices also receive new functions and features that are very interesting and, above all, useful. One of them has to do with the possibility of having a more personalized experience in the quick settings panel of our phones.

In One UI 6 it was possible to change the settings and configuration buttons in the quick settings panel, but One UI 7 goes further and allows us to change the order in which the widgets appear and even adds new controls and shortcuts from this screen, including volume level control, access to modes and routines and more.

To customize the quick settings panel, follow these steps:

• We slide our finger from the top right of the screen downwards to access the quick settings panel.
• We press the pencil-shaped button at the top of the screen
• We hold down on the widgets to organize them according to our preference

We can also click on ‘Edit’ to select the quick settings buttons and configure the order in which they appear on the screen, this way we can have quicker and easier access to the buttons we use most.