5 Samsung Galaxy Features You Need to Activate Yourself

Your Samsung Galaxy phone is already an impressive productivity tool out of the box. This is partly because most of its core features are enabled by default, making them much more accessible to you. For example, you can automatically split your screen into two apps as soon as you set up your device. Multi-control, which allows you to control all your Galaxy devices at the same time with a single keyboard and mouse, is also enabled. Then you have Circle to Search, where you can use what’s on your screen as a search query for Google.

But beyond these flagship features, your Samsung Galaxy hides even more practical tools behind a toggle switch. These hidden settings aren’t automatically enabled, so you might miss out on some cool features exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy without even realizing it. If you’re looking for other ways to get the most out of your phone, here are five Samsung Galaxy features that need to be enabled manually.

Although controlling music on your phone screen is easy, there are times when you prefer a physical control button. Maybe your phone is in your pocket and you don’t want the hassle of taking it out. Or maybe you’re wearing gloves or have sweaty hands and can’t touch the screen. Lucky for you, your Samsung Galaxy phone has music control via volume keys, but it’s not enabled by default. To enable this feature, you need the Sound Assistant module in the Good Lock app. Good Lock is essentially a customization center for Samsung phones, designed to improve the overall user experience, in the same way that Sound Assistant lets you better manage audio on the device. Here’s how to configure it:

1. Launch the Good Lock app. If you don’t already have it, install it from the Galaxy Store.
2. In the Plugins tab, find Sound Assistant.
3. Tap the download button next to it.
4. After downloading the app, open Sound Assistant from the Good Lock app or your phone’s app drawer.
5. Give Sound Assistant the necessary permissions.
6. Scroll down to the Media key shortcuts section.
7. Enable the Control music with volume keys option.
8. Tap Control music with volume keys.
9. Select your preferred setting: Up for previous songs and Down for next songs, or Up for next songs and Down for previous songs.

Now, whenever your screen is locked, you can press and hold the volume key to skip to the next or previous song. It works on streaming apps like Spotify and YouTube Music and local music players like Poweramp and Musicolet.

If you’re like most users, the only time you remember to restart your Galaxy phone is when you encounter a problem. When everything is working as expected, restarting your device is probably the last thing you would think about. But it’s a habit you should start breaking. Indeed, the frequency with which you restart your phone has an impact on its performance: the longer it is up, the more problems can arise later. Regular rebooting can help keep your Samsung Galaxy running smoothly.

But what happens if you forget? This is where the Auto Optimize option in Settings comes in handy. This menu allows you to automatically restart your Galaxy phone. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you will face random reboots while you are actively using your device. Auto restart will only be enabled in certain scenarios, such as when your phone is idle, the screen is off, the battery is at 30% or more, and the SIM card lock is disabled.

To enable automatic restart on your Samsung Galaxy, follow these steps:

1. In the Settings app, scroll down to Device care.
2. Under Performance, tap Auto Optimization.
3. Open Auto Reboot.
4. To make your Galaxy restart whenever it detects performance issues, enable Restart if necessary.
5. To make your device restart regularly, enable Restart on schedule and set the days and time you want. You are free to select multiple days.

Once your Samsung Galaxy restarts automatically, make sure to unlock it afterwards. Otherwise, it will not be able to receive alerts, trigger alarms and display the names of incoming callers.

During a call, the last thing you want is for the other person to only hear noise coming from your side. The good news is that your Samsung Galaxy phone includes a cool feature that can make your voice stand out better in busy environments: Voice Focus. It filters sound and minimizes ambient sounds to let you make clear phone calls even when you’re in public spaces.

Voice Focus is one of three microphone modes on your device. The other two are Standard and Full Spectrum. The standard does some audio filtering, but it does not eliminate most background noise. Full Spectrum, on the other hand, doesn’t filter audio at all and lets both your voice and all the sounds around you through. Calls default to Standard mic mode, so you need to manually switch to Voice Focus when you need to improve the clarity of your voice for a particular call. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Make or answer a call on your Galaxy phone.
2. Open the Quick Settings panel.
3. Tap Microphone mode at the very top of the panel.
4. Switch to voice focus.
5. Tap Done.
6. Return to the call screen.

Your voice should now sound clearer to the other person. Besides phone calls, Voice Focus also works for third-party video conferencing apps, including Google Meet, Skype, Zoom, and Facebook Messenger. However, mic mode itself is not supported on all Galaxy phones. If you can’t find it in the Quick Settings panel, it may not be available to you.

So you try to take a selfie with your phone, but the way you’re holding it makes it incredibly difficult to press the shutter button. Fortunately, there is a setting on your Samsung Galaxy device that you can enable to make taking photos much easier. Called a floating shutter button, it essentially creates a copy of the shutter button on the screen. It’s just the same size, but unlike the original, you can slide it freely to wherever you can reach it quickly. Here’s what you need to do to enable this Android camera feature (which iPhone doesn’t have):

1. Open your Camera app.
2. Tap the menu icon (four dots forming a square) in the lower right corner.
3. Go to Settings.
4. Under General, select Shooting Methods.
5. Turn on the floating shutter button.

Then, when you switch to Photo or Portrait mode on your camera, you’ll see a white shutter button floating above the viewfinder. Just drag and drop it to your preferred location. It is important to note that the floating shutter release does not behave exactly like the stock shutter. For one, it doesn’t support any gestures other than a single tap. This means you can only use it to take photos, whereas the stock shutter lets you pull down to take burst photos and long press to start video recording. The floating shutter button is also available exclusively in Photo and Portrait mode, and nowhere else.

Notifications on your phone are useful tools, but they can also be the bane of your existence. Imagine how annoying it is to receive 20+ different alerts from different apps in a day. Of course, you can always turn off notifications from certain apps. But that often means blocking every alert from that specific app. So what if you just want to turn off a certain type of notification?

In this case, you can enable notification categories on your Galaxy phone. Notification categories allow you to turn off only specific notifications for an app while keeping the rest active. For example, for Facebook, you can block birthday notifications but keep alerts on comments and tags. Here’s how to enable notification categories on your Samsung phone:

1. Go to the Settings app.
2. Select Notifications.
3. Tap Advanced Settings.
4. Enable Manage notification categories for each app.
5. Return to the main notifications page.
6. Open app notifications.
7. Tap the app you want to manage.
8. Tap Notification Categories at the bottom.
9. Disable categories you don’t want to receive.

If you want to further customize each notification category, you can do so from the app’s Notification Categories page. Simply tap the type of alert you want to customize. From here, you are free to set that specific notification category to silent, change the sound, turn vibrate on/off, and hide lock screen content. These options will only apply to this category and not to all alerts in the app. Keep in mind, however, that notification categories and customization options may not be available for all apps you have installed.