15 Hidden Galaxy S8 Tricks and Features

Samsung's newest flagship smartphones - the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus - are getting a lot of attention, with

pre-orders and sales are skyrocketing

, and almost everyone gives them very positive reviews. Smartphones bring a ton of great features, and while many of them are pretty obvious, there are hidden features and tricks that aren't so obvious. So , if you have purchased (or plan to

to buy

) the Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus and want to know more about the cool but hidden features they offer,

here are 15 hidden Galaxy S8 tricks and features you should know about:

1. Remap the Bixby button

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus come with Samsung's own take on AI assistants designed to make your life easier. However, in its current state, Bixby isn't very useful, which makes the dedicated hardware button a bit useless. Fortunately, with the help of an app called BixBye (

free

) the Bixby button

can be easily remapped to launch whatever you want

.You can read more about BixBye and learn how to use it in our article on

remap Bixby button

on the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.

2. Use Separate App Sounds

If you like to blast music loudly through your Bluetooth speakers, chances are you wouldn't want an incoming call or text streaming its audio through your Bluetooth speakers. But that's how it is. has always been…until now. With the S8 and S8 Plus, Samsung is offering what is known as “Separate App Sounds”.

play sounds for specific applications through a specific output only

, and all other sounds are played through the device.

You can find and enable this feature by going to "

Settings -> Sounds and vibrations

", then "

Separate app sounds

Here you can simply

enable toggle

, then choose which apps should play their sounds through which audio output.

3. Pin anything to always-on display

The always-on display on the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus is really awesome, and while I wish the notifications didn't turn into little circular icons, there are things about the always-on display that are really awesome. .One such feature allows users to pin almost anything they want to Always on Display.It could be

an image, or a note taken in Google Keep, etc.

You can even pin YouTube videos to Always on Display, but they only appear as URLs. To pin, for example, a note to Always on Display, you can simply follow the steps below:

Launch GoogleKeep and

select the note you want to pin

.Then press the

three dot menu

at the top right and press "

To send

From the screen that slides up, select "

Always on screen

", then press "

Pin to Always on Display

The note will be pinned to the Always on screen of your S8 or S8 Plus and you can access it with a quick double tap. This can be extremely useful for reminders and shopping lists, as you can access it without having to to unlock your phone.

4. Enable Download Booster for faster download speeds

If you have used Speedify before (

It's awesome

), you probably know how useful it can be to combine the bandwidths of multiple networks to improve download speeds. Samsung includes a Download Booster feature in the S8 and S8 Plus that effectively does the same thing, except that 'she

uses your WiFi and LTE connections at the same time to increase download speed

.To activate Download Booster, just follow the steps below:

To note

Using LTE for downloads can quickly increase your data costs, so make sure you have an unlimited plan if you decide to use this feature too often.

Go to "

Settings -> Connections -> More connection settings

Here, just toggle the toggle next to "

Download Booster

" from its "off" position to "on".

You will now be able to see marked improvements in the download speeds you get on your phone with Download Booster enabled, compared to disabling it.

5. Enable dual audio for Bluetooth devices

The S8 and S8 Plus are the first smartphones on the market supporting Bluetooth 5.0, and among them

various interesting features

, the one that really stands out is the fact that with Bluetooth 5.0, the S8 and S8 Plus can stream music to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously. That's just awesome! There may be a slight lag between the two devices, but what matters is that two people can now simultaneously enjoy music wirelessly via Bluetooth.

To enable Dual Audio for Bluetooth devices in the S8 and S8 Plus, simply go to "

Settings -> Connections -> Bluetooth

Make sure Bluetooth is turned on, then press the

three dot menu button

.Here press "

Dual sound

".You can then activate Dual Audio and enjoy your music on two Bluetooth devices at the same time.

6. Hide Apps

Hiding apps is not something that

everyone

use, but it's

it's good to have the function

in case you need to use it. Luckily, with the S8 and S8 Plus, you won't have to rely on third-party app lockers that seem a bit dodgy or unreliable. To hide apps on your S8 or S8 Plus smartphone, just follow the steps below:

Swipe up from the home screen to open the app drawer, then tap the three-dot menu button at the top right. Here, tap

"Settings"

Here press "

Hide apps

".You can then just select the apps you want to hide and tap

15 Hidden Galaxy S8 Tricks and Features

"Apply".

7. Capture Clips or GIFs

Another great feature that comes with the S8 and S8 Plus is the smart selection tools in the edge panels. With these tools you can capture a rectangular or elliptical portion of the screen. really amazing is the animation tool. If you are watching a video on your S8 and there is a scene you want to create a GIF from, you can just swipe to the Smart Select Edge panel and press the

"Animation"

tool.

Then you can place it over the playing video and save it. The S8 will convert the recording into a GIF which you can then share with your friends or send as a tweet.

8. Remove Icon Frames

The S8 and S8 Plus both use squircle icons all over the user interface. This means that apps that don't have squircle icons, have their icons resized and fit into white squircles to match the themed the rest of the phone. While this looks uniform, it tends to make the icons look bad. So if you want your phone to ignore the squircle icons and instead use all the normal icons.

To do this, you can simply head to

Settings -> Display -> Icon Frames.

Here, select "

icons only

”, and tap “Done”. The S8 will switch from using squircle icons with white frames to normal app icons instead.

9. Secure Folder

Secure Folder is a new feature Samsung has added to the S8 and S8 Plus. With Secure Folder, you can keep your personal data for compatible apps safe in a secure folder that you can only access by entering the PIN code, by scanning your fingerprint or through the iris scanner. It's great because for the same app, you can basically create two separate spaces, one that anyone with access to your phone can see, and another inside from the Secure Folder. So if you take photos with the Camera app in the Secure Folder, they will be saved in the Gallery, but will not be visible outside of the Secure Folder.

Moreover, if you have images in your gallery that you want to secure, you can move them from the normal gallery to the one in the secure folder, effectively protecting them from unauthorized access.

10. Edit edge panels and add more

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus come with curved screens and there is no longer a flat screen option, so even if you didn't like the curved screen design and didn't use a edge panels it's high time you start adopting it.Edge panels are actually very useful as long as you configure them properly.To edit edge panels and add other panels you can follow the steps below:

Go to

Settings -> Display -> Edge Screen

.Here press "

Edge panels

In the screen that opens, you can easily enable or disable the preloaded Edge panels that come with the S8 and S8 Plus. Also, if you want to check out other cooler Edge panels, you can do so by simply tapping the "

To download

” button at the top right.

Once you set up the Edge Panels on your S8 or S8 Plus, you will realize that they are actually very useful and really make it easier to perform many operations on your smartphone.

11. Fit apps and videos to 18.5:9 aspect ratio screen

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have an aspect ratio of 18.5:9, which makes the screen taller than it is wide, making the phone much more compact and easier to hold with one hand. , it also has the problem that most apps and videos are meant to be viewed on 16:9 aspect ratio smartphones, that's why when you launch third-party apps or watch YouTube videos on S8 and S8 Plus, they have black. bars on the sides.

Luckily, Samsung has an easy fix for these problems. When you're using an app that has black bars on the top and bottom, you just need to

tap the recent button

, and you will see an icon on the app card to scale the app to use the full

18.5:9 screen

on the S8 or S8 Plus. You can just tap on this icon and the app

be automatically resized t

o Perfectly fits the S8 screen.

Similarly, for videos,

you will see a button on the video player

which you can tap to quickly crop the video to fit the device screen, which makes the experience much better on the beautiful S8 screen.

12. Use a blue light filter

Recent studies have shown that the blue light that emanates from smartphone and laptop screens can disrupt the human sleep cycle and prevent users from sleeping properly. To address this problem, Samsung is including a blue light filter in the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. When you enable this option, the S8 removes blue light from the screen, making it easier on the eyes at night and preventing any disruption to your sleep cycle.

You can enable blue light filter on your S8 and S8 Plus by going to

Settings -> Display

, and toggle the toggle next to "

blue light filter

" to "

".You can then also tap on "Blue Light Filter" and adjust the settings to suit you best.The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus also support scheduled blue light filter, so the device l Automatically turn on/off based on sunrise and sunset in your area.

13. Create custom battery saving profiles

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have average battery life. Luckily, Samsung includes a pretty decent battery management tool in the S8 and S8 Plus. Just head over to

Settings -> Device Maintenance

and press

Battery.

Here you will be able to see the preset battery saving modes that Samsung offers with the S8. These modes simply

change some settings and disable some additional items

to extend the battery life of your smartphone. However, you can even create custom battery saving profiles on your smartphone. Just follow the steps below:

Only

tap one of the preset battery saving profiles

, then press

"Personalize".

Here you will be able to adjust all the settings that the profile was adjusting itself. You can adjust how the profile changes the settings of your Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus, according to your needs while enjoying the the battery of your device.

14. Configure Game Launcher

While there's no doubt that the S8 and S8 Plus are fully capable of handling even the most demanding games, it's always a good thing if a game's frame rate increases even more, right? , wouldn't you like to avoid getting annoying notifications when you're about to perform a sick move that will make your opponents cry in the aftermath of the battle? Well, with Game Launcher, you can do all that and more. To activate Game Launcher, just follow the steps below:

Go to

Settings -> Advanced Features -> Games

Here, toggle the toggle next to

"Game Launcher"

TO.

What this does is

consolidates all your games in one place

, adding a "Game Launcher" shortcut to your home screen; while giving you more options to dramatically improve your gaming experience on the S8 or S8 Plus.

15. Color Code Folders

Another element of customization you can do on your Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus is color coding folders. This type of customization can also be useful for quickly identifying folders, once you get used to knowing what color corresponds to which folder. To color code folders, you can just tap on any folder to open it and then

tap the “palette” ico

n at the top right. Here you can

select color

you want for the folder, and easily color the folders according to your personal preferences.