Tag: settings

10 settings you need to change to improve your Pixel experience

While Pixel phones offer many beneficial features by default, altering these specific settings can drastically affect The Google Pixel 9a could be the best-value phone of 2025, especially now that it has flagship-level AI capabilities, a dazzling 120Hz display, and a large battery at a more inexpensive price. However, like with every Pixel phone, the most useful functions are frequently disabled by default.

These suggestions are for a Pixel 9a running Android 15. The specific menu locations may differ slightly depending on the Pixel model and Android version you’re using, but the settings are broadly available throughout recent Pixel generations.Enhance your user experience.

Use smooth display

Pixels continue to ship with a dazzling Actua 120Hz OLED panel, which is set to a more cautious 60Hz by default. It’s fine for battery conservation, but if you prefer buttery-smooth scrolling and animations that showcase the screen’s full capability, enable Smooth Display.

Go to Settings > Display > Smooth Display and turn it on. You’ll notice an immediate improvement in responsiveness when scrolling through social networks or navigating the UI.

Use “At a Glance”

When you enable the Pixel’s smart widgets, the lock screen may transform into a small command center. At a Glance displays travel information, weather alerts, calendar events, and more.

All of this happens via the Pixel Launcher. Tap and hold any available space on the home screen, then pick Home settings, followed by the At a Glance settings button. There, you may control what kind of information display and what data sources it uses (with your permission, of course).

As an added bonus, the At a Glance widget on your home screen will display this information, increasing your chances of receiving notifications and updates.

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Use caller ID and spam ID to save your time

Pixel phones actively filter out spam and unrecognized numbers. Google’s Caller ID and Spam feature detects robocalls and other unwanted calls before you answer.

Open the Phone app and navigate to Settings > Caller ID and Spam. Enable See caller and spam ID, and incoming calls will have a vivid red alert that cannot be ignored. If your Pixel has the option to filter spam calls, I recommend turning it on, as this prevents those calls from ringing your phone and instead sends them directly to voicemail.

Dismiss notifications across Pixel devices

This one is for the Pixel fanatics out there. If you have multiple Pixel devices signed in with the same Google account, you can sync notification dismissals between them.

Go to Settings > Notifications > Dismiss notifications from all Pixel devices. Toggle Dismiss on this device, grant notification access, and select the apps you wish to sync. Repeat the process on all of your Pixel devices to ensure that you never see the same notice twice.

Enable app suggestions on the home screen

The Pixel Launcher may provide app suggestions based on personal information such as location, time of day, and usage habits.

Tap and hold an available space on the home screen to access Home Settings > Suggestions. Enable Suggestions on Home Screen, then remove at least one static symbol from the bottom row of your Home Screen. That location will turn yellow and begin to change dynamically based on usage trends. You may even do this on the entire row if you like.

Increase battery life using Adaptive Battery and Extreme Saver.

Pixels already have a long battery life, but Google’s battery-saving features extend it much further. Adaptive Battery learns which apps you use the most and reduces power to the others. Extreme Battery Saver turns down non-essential apps to save power for days.

Enable both under Settings > Battery > Battery Saver > Adaptive Battery and Battery Saver > Extreme Battery Saver. You can also set schedules so that they activate automatically when needed.

Use Pixel Quick Tap feature

The Pixel’s Quick Tap function allows you to double-tap anywhere on the phone’s back to perform customized actions, but it is not activated by default. You can configure it to start the camera, take a screenshot, pause music, or open your preferred app.

Go to Settings > System > Gestures > Quick Tap, then enable it and select your chosen shortcut. Mine is set to toggle the flashlight, which is quite useful.

Enhance Now Playing on your lockscreen

Now Playing is a great tool that automatically recognizes songs that are playing around you. The phone displays that information on your lock screen in a passive manner. Even though the database is remarkable and entirely on-device, it cannot identify every song out there. This is where Google Search comes in.

Go to Settings > Display > Lock Screen > Now Playing and select Identify Songs Playing Nearby. Then, enable the Show search button on Lock Screen. The next time Now Playing fails, hit the lock screen icon to transmit the audio fingerprint to Google Search for a second viewpoint. It does not always work, but when it does, you will be glad you tried.

Change your lock screen privacy settings

By default, notifications appear on your lock screen, so others may view your messages. I always change this option on my new devices.

Go to Settings > Notifications and turn Sensitive notifications off. This keeps the sender and app visible while hiding the message contents. To ensure utmost privacy, go to Notifications on the lock screen and select Don’t show any notifications.

Make use of Live Translate and Interpreter Mode

Tensor-powered Pixels offer offline translation tools. Live Translate enables you to automatically translate text messages in real time.

Go to Settings > System > Live Translate, then Add a language. Depending on your choices, you’ll have access to services such as in-message translation, camera view translation, and live captioning for videos. Interpreter mode still requires Google Assistant, which is becoming less important now that Gemini has taken over.

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A few small changes can help your new Pixel feel faster, smarter, and more personal. Whether this is your first Pixel or you’ve lost count by now, taking the time to explore these options unlocks some of the best of what Google has to offer.

May 10, 2025
Clean your browser junk files in a few steps.

Regularly clearing the cache and cookies in your web browser will help you get rid of unnecessary garbage files.

Much of the information that your Android phone’s web browser gathers from the websites you visit is unnecessary for it to be on your phone.

The information kept in your cookies and cache, regardless of whether you are using Samsung Internet, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome, may come in handy occasionally. It is what keeps you signed into your accounts and enables you to swiftly access websites that you visit often. That is great, but your browser’s cookies and cache include a lot of unnecessary data that may even pose a privacy concern.

The reasons behind periodicaly clearing your cache and cookies

A large portion of the content that accumulates in your cookies and cache is just useless garbage. A portion of it might have come from single-visited websites. Some appear to be actively monitoring your browser history in order to provide you with adverts that are relevant to what you purchase or watch online. For example, after looking at a few stores, I keep getting advertising for buying glasses online, or I get ads from Amazon that just so happen to reflect what was last in my shopping basket.

It is a good idea to periodically clean your cache because of this. It enables you to delete data from your phone that you no longer require, particularly if one of the cookies on your phone has an unknown data tracker. You will have to log back into some of your favorite websites after clearing your cache, but it is a tiny annoyance to ensure that your phone is not accumulating unnecessary data.

The steps differ slightly depending on the type of phone and web browser app you’re using. Below, we’ll go over how to clear this data for Google’s Chrome browser (often the default for many Android phones, like the Google Pixel line), Samsung’s internet browser (often the default on the Galaxy phone series) and Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

Google Chrome

In the Google Chrome app for Android, you can clear your cache and cookies by first clicking the More button (shown by a column of three dots) in the top right corner of the browser, then selecting History, and then selecting Clear browsing data. Alternatively, you may access this by selecting Privacy and Security from the Chrome Settings menu, followed by Clear browsing data.

Additionally, Chrome has Basic and Advanced settings for deleting cookies, site data, cached files and pictures, and browsing history. You can choose to erase all of your information or just a portion of it, ranging from the recent 24 hours to the previous four weeks, using the Time range drop-down menu. You can also delete Saved passwords, Autofill form data, and Site settings by tapping Advanced.

Once you have decided what to remove, hit the blue “Clear data” button. If Chrome considers any websites to be “essential” to you, you may receive an additional prompt, and you will be able to accept before clearing. In the event that you do not receive the prompt, Chrome will clear as soon as you tell it to.

Samsung Internet

You can delete the cache and cookie data from your Samsung Internet browser in two distinct methods. You have two options for clearing: using the Settings app on your phone, or directly from within the browser.

To clear while in the Samsung Internet browser app, first tap the Options button in the bottom right corner represented by three horizontal lines, then Settings; scroll down to and tap Personal Data, then tap Delete browsing data to get a menu of options to delete. You can clear your Browsing history, Cookies and site data, Cached images and files, Passwords and Autofill forms in any combination. After tapping Delete data, you’ll then receive a prompt asking for you to confirm your choices before deleting.

You can customize what you want to erase the most by going through the browser app itself. Nevertheless, you may launch the Settings app, touch on Apps, scroll down to Samsung Internet, and then tap Storage if you want to access comparable choices from your phone’s settings menu.

There are distinct options to clear data and clear cache at the bottom of Storage. Choosing Clear data triggers a warning that all of the application’s data, including files, settings, accounts, and databases, will be permanently erased. Tapping Clear cache will instantly remove the cache. This “going nuclear” method should erase all leftover data, even though it does not mention cookies, allowing you to restart the Samsung Internet browser as if it were a fresh install.

Mozilla Firefox

You may empty the cache from within the Mozilla Firefox Android app, just like you can with Google Chrome. Once more represented by three vertically aligned dots, the More button is located to the right of the address bar. Tap it to access this function. Next, select Settings and proceed to the Delete browsing data section.

Of the three browsers we’re discussing here, Firefox gives you the most options under the Delete browsing data menu, allowing you to also delete any existing Open tabs, your Browsing history and site data, Site permissions and even your Downloads folder alongside Cookies and Cached images and files.

You can be more precise about the kind of data you want to erase, even though you are unable to select a time frame like you can with Chrome.

Additionally, Firefox offers a second option for users who want not to store their browser history once they close the program. There is a Delete browsing data on stop option in Settings that tells Firefox to remove any combination of these same settings each time the program is closed. This is a helpful function if you want to maintain your browser clean and, for example, not unintentionally give your browsing history to someone who could have stolen or otherwise obtained access to your phone.

February 25, 2024
Updated setting tabs for Youtube Music

YouTube Music upgraded its Home feed for tablets at the start of this year, promising additional UI improvements, particularly for playlists. On Android, YouTube Music now has a more user-friendly settings structure.

Instead of the fullscreen page available on phones, visiting the Account menu on Android tablets (and Chromebooks) initiates a pop-up (keeping navigation context).

Settings now has a two-column UI, which is common among first-party Android apps like Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, and others. The real controls are on the right, while the available options are listed on the left.

This is a much better approach as settings for YouTube Music have been unwieldy for some time now as more things were added. We’re not encountering it on Android phones today, but YouTube Music offers a similar list approach on iPhone and iPad, though with different groupings. It could also be coming to smaller Android screens as a result.

This is a much better method, as YouTube Music settings have been unmanageable for a long time as more features have been added. We haven’t seen it on Android phones yet, but YouTube Music on iPhone and iPad has a similar list structure, though with different groups. As a result, it’s possible that it’ll be available on smaller Android screens as well.

May 31, 2022