I wish more people knew about these 7 buried Android features

I’ve been writing about Android smartphones for years, so I know a lot of the tricks and hidden features that can improve a user’s experience. At the same time, I’m constantly finding out about features that went unnoticed by me thanks to complicated menus and differing Android skins.

Once I discover these features, though, I become akin to a street preacher sharing the good news of Android optimization. And today I’m here to share some of the most useful buried features I wish more people knew about.

You can see the permissions each app has access to in your app settings, but Android also has a built-in privacy dashboard that makes this information easier to digest at a glance. It highlights the permissions that apps have accessed in the past 24 hours in a useful chart. You can also see a summary of specific permissions and which apps have accessed them over the past day.

This dashboard has helped me revoke permissions that I have accidentally granted in the past. For example, I realized that X (Twitter) had a contacts permission that I didn’t remember granting. It also flagged several other apps that were accessing my contacts unnecessarily.

To access the privacy dashboard, you can go to Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy dashboard. On Samsung’s One UI, the steps differ slightly. You will need to go to Settings > Security and privacy > Permissions used in last 24 hours. However, Samsung’s version doesn’t include the handy chart.

More often than not, when someone wants me to connect to their home Wi-Fi network, they give me the name and password. But there’s a much simpler way to allow others to connect to your network — sharing an easily generated QR code.

The exact process depends on the smartphone brand you’re using — some automatically show the QR code when you select the option to share a network on your phone, while others require you to select it as the sharing method. But the basic steps are usually to go to your Wi-Fi settings and access the current network’s sharing options.

On Samsung Galaxy phones, for example, you need to go to Settings > Connections > Wi-Fi and then select the cog icon next to your current network. At the bottom of the screen, there’s a button for QR code.

To scan a QR code using your device, you will also need to go to your Wi-Fi settings and select the scan icon. This means you don’t have to worry about using Google Lens, your phone’s camera, or a QR code scanning app.

I usually carry multiple phones around with me, either as part of reviews I’m doing, or because I’m playing Pokémon Go. But rather than having a SIM for each, I use one data SIM — either in my main phone or in a travel router.

However, I quickly encountered a problem with this privacy-focused approach. My connected phones were treating my hotspot as a regular Wi-Fi connection, meaning that they quickly used up my limited data plan. I could set a limit for the hotspot, but this wouldn’t solve the issue of one phone updating its OS while connected, using up my whole bundle for the month.

That’s when I discovered the option to set up a metered connection. The option makes your phone treat the network similarly to a mobile network, limiting its data usage. While this setting is notably absent on my HONOR smartphone, you can set it on other devices.

For example, on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, you can open the settings for a Wi-Fi network, select the View more dropdown, and then tap on Metered network. Set the option to Treat as metered so that your phone treats it like a mobile network.

It’s no secret that Android is a mess of menus and settings that can become difficult to navigate. The ability to search your settings makes it easier to find things, but even then certain items may not show up, like the settings for your default launcher.

This mess becomes even more confusing when switching between devices with different Android skins. For example, my Samsung device has its eye comfort settings in its display settings, but my HONOR smartphone has a dedicated menu for all its eye care features.

That’s why this trick is one of my favorites. If you have a certain setting in your Quick Settings — the icons located within the control panel you access when swiping down on your phone’s screen — you can use it as a shortcut to customize and access the feature. Usually, people just use this to switch a setting on and off, but if you hold down on an icon, it will take you to that feature’s settings page.

This means your Do Not Disturb icon isn’t only for switching the feature on and off. If you want to adjust your schedule, for example, you can hold down the icon to access its settings.  Holding down on the Eye Comfort icon takes me to the page where I can set its warmth and tweak other settings. The trick means you spend less time lost in menus or searching for specific terms.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that you should be able to switch your phone off with your power button. It’s in the name. But in recent years, that button has turned into a shortcut for Gemini. You can already access the AI tool using your voice and its wake word, but Google decided that another shortcut was necessary and commandeered the power button.

If you’re like me and don’t need a physical button for Gemini, you can actually change what your power button does. This setting is buried in different places depending on your smartphone brand. My S26 Ultra review unit has it under Settings > Advanced features > Side button > Long press. This allows you to switch it to a different assistant or to the power menu.

On HONOR devices, the setting is within the accessibility settings. You can go to Settings > Accessibility features > Shortcuts & gestures > Press and hold Power button. If you’re struggling to find the setting on your device, I recommend searching for “power button” in your settings.

When you set up your phone, you get a default set of Quick Settings icons that are enabled. If your phone’s setup wizard didn’t take you through any customization, the panel may be full of features you never use.

But you can customize your Quick Settings so that your most-used features are at the forefront. You can also discover a bunch of new Quick Settings depending on the apps that you have installed. For example, Home Assistant gives me access to a range of Quick Settings shortcuts that I can configure with the service. TickTick also has an Add Task tile that I can use.

To access the customization menu for the panel, navigate to your Quick Settings and select the pencil icon. Then select Edit or Add Tile to select and change the shortcuts available in the Quick Settings section. You can also drag and drop the shortcuts to adjust their order in the panel.

Notifications used to be a useful way to keep abreast of important updates from apps, but have become a way for companies to relentlessly force engagement. This is most insidious when it comes to apps that you do want to receive a few notifications from, but which also send a bunch of unimportant updates.

For example, I want to receive notifications for when my Uber Eats order is on its way. But I rarely order takeout, so notifications about specials and promotions are useless to me. That’s where notification channels come in.

Notification channels are groups of notifications on an app that can be disabled individually. So, for an app like Uber Eats, I can silence promotions while still getting important delivery updates. The drawback is that while all notifications must be assigned to a channel as of Android 8, not all developers do this in good faith. I’ve found a number of apps that simply have one channel and no way to configure notifications from within the app.

For the apps that do allow you to manage your notifications, you can access their channels on the app info page. To access this, head to Settings > Apps > Manage apps > [App name] > Notifications. On this page, you should see the different channels under Notification type.

Samsung makes this setting extra difficult to use, since notification channel management isn’t enabled by default. To enable it, first go to Settings > Notifications > Advanced settings, and toggle on Manage notification categories for each app. Then, to access the notification channels for a specific app, head to Settings > Apps > [App name] > Notifications > Notification categories. Here you can toggle the specific categories you want to enable or disable.

If you’re not sure which channel a notification belongs to, you can wait for one to appear on your home screen. Depending on your smartphone, you either need to hold down on the notification or swipe left to access the notification settings. This takes you to the notifications channels page, with the corresponding category flashing.

While not foolproof, it can go a long way towards getting your notifications under control.

Android phones don’t always do the best job of surfacing the most useful tricks and settings. Plus, the open-source nature of the OS means that each brand tweaks its own version of the software differently.

I feel like I’m constantly finding new tricks that optimize the way that I use my phone. I just wish Android made it easier to access them so that they weren’t hidden gems.