After a long delay, Samsung has started rolling out One UI 7 stable to its 2024 and older flagship devices. While One UI 7’s visual changes are hogging the media limelight, the skin comes with other useful changes and settings. After updating your Samsung Galaxy phone to One UI 7, check out these settings for an improved experience or to address minor regressions in the skin.
Related
6 Split notification shade
Undoing a major One UI 7 change
With One UI 7, Samsung adopted a split notification shade and Quick Settings panel similar to those found on Apple devices. The two are now separate: swiping down from the upper-right corner opens Quick Settings, while swiping down from the left side of the notch expands the notification panel.
If you don’t like this change, you can revert to the classic One UI notification shade, which combines the two. To do this, expand the Quick Settings menu and tap the pencil icon in the upper-right corner. Then, select Panel settings in the upper-right corner and tap Together. You can customize the six Quick Settings toggles that appear in this mode.
Try the new split notification and Quick Settings panel for a few days after updating your Galaxy phone to One UI 7. If you still don’t like it, go back to the old style.
5 Vertical app drawer
Quickly find the app you are looking for
After updating to One UI 7, you might not notice any immediate changes in your Galaxy phone’s app drawer. However, one addition is worth exploring: a vertical app drawer.
Samsung removed the feature a few years ago, but it’s making a return with One UI 7. If you installed a huge library of apps and games on your phone, a vertical app drawer will make sifting through them easier and faster.
Switching to the vertical app drawer in One UI 7 is easy. Open the app drawer, tap the three-dot menu button located to the right of the search bar, and select Alphabetical order. This arranges your installed apps alphabetically and switches to a vertical layout. There’s also a fast scroll bar, making it easy to jump to the right section in the app drawer.
4 Good Lock
Customize your home screen just like you want
If you’re a seasoned Galaxy user, you likely use Good Lock and its various modules on your phone. After updating to One UI 7, it’s worth exploring the modules again. With Android 15 and the latest One UI update, Samsung gave Good Lock and its plugins a major overhaul, making them more powerful. There are several new features and enhancements to explore, especially with the Home Up module.
Home Up opens up the door to endless home screen and animation customization, offering options you won’t find in custom ROMs or Chinese Android skins. You can place stickers, app icons, text blocks, and widgets anywhere on the home screen. You can ditch the conventional grid-based layout to let your creativity flow freely. Similarly, you can customize the dock, hiding it entirely or adding up to nine shortcuts.
If that’s not enough, you can customize the home gesture animation tuning. I’m not only talking about speeding or slowing them down. You can adjust the damping, stiffness, and friction of the icon movement. The customization settings are unprecedented and worth checking out after you install the One UI 7 update on your Galaxy phone.
Samsung is not bundling Good Lock and its modules with One UI 7. However, its availability has expanded, with Good Lock listed for download worldwide on the Play Store.
Related
3 Now Bar
Show contextual information from important apps on the lock screen
Now Bar is one of the key new features in One UI 7. Think of it as Samsung’s take on the iPhone’s Live Activities and Dynamic Island. It promises to surface contextual and relevant information at the bottom of your Galaxy phone’s lock screen or as live notifications in the status bar. By default, the Now Bar only surfaces information from selected apps.
After installing One UI 7 on your Galaxy phone, navigate to Settings > Lock screen and AOD > Now bar. From here, toggle on or off the apps that display essential information on the Now Bar. I enabled the toggles for Media player, Google Maps, Sports from Google, and Clock, while leaving them off for Samsung Notes and Voice Recorder.
If you use Always On Display on your Galaxy phone, you can have the Now Bar appear in this mode. To do this, go to Settings > Lock screen and AOD > Always On Display and enable the Show Now bar option.
You win some, you lose some
Now Bar increases the usefulness of One UI 7’s lock screen by showing relevant and contextual information on a timely basis. You can also add mini widgets to your Galaxy phone’s lock screen. This is a downgrade, as in One UI 6.1.1 and older builds, you could have full-screen widgets. A positive side to this change is that the mini lock screen widgets are always visible, which was not the case previously.
Adding mini widgets to your Galaxy phone’s lock screen running One UI 7 is easy. Long press on the lock screen and unlock your phone when prompted. Then, tap Add widgets to bring up a list of widgets you can add, including camera, gallery, battery, and calendar. Due to space restrictions, you can only add two mini widgets.
While on the lock screen editing page, tap the clock widget to customize it. Samsung has added several new themes and font styles to One UI 7. If you enjoy customizing every aspect of your phone, explore One UI 7’s lock screen editing options after updating your Galaxy device.
1 Camera filters
Customize them as per your taste
I avoid using filters in the Samsung Camera app when clicking pictures, as they generally ruin the mood I want to achieve. Instead, I edit the image after capturing the shot and tweak things accordingly.
After updating to One UI 7, I was pleasantly surprised by the customization options for filters in the Camera app. Samsung made them more customizable, letting you tweak the color temperature, contrast, saturation, and film grain to your liking. You can also create a custom filter using a base image of your choice. Samsung smartly implemented this feature, allowing you to customize filters separately for the front and rear cameras.
If you love clicking moody pictures with your Galaxy phone, check out the filter customization options in the Samsung Camera app after updating to One UI 7.
Elevate your One UI 7 experience
Despite the delayed rollout, One UI 7 delivers a polished Android skin experience. The super-smooth animations and customization options combine to deliver a refinement like no other. You can further refine your experience by adjusting the above settings after updating your Galaxy phone to One UI 7.
One UI 7 also brings hidden features you probably missed. Check out some of the small and underrated updates that will help you be more productive on your phone.
