Samsung - and Android phones in general - provide plenty of options when it comes to customising the home screen. Thanks to Samsung’s One UI, there are plenty of options available to you to make the phone your own. Some of these are the same as other Android phones, but some are specific to One UI.
This guide was written based on One UI 5.1 on theSamsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, but older versions of One UI offer many of the same features, so if you have an older device, you’ll be able to use these options too.
What can you change?
Let’s get the basics out of the way first. Android phones use what’s called a “launcher”, which encompasses the home screen pages and the apps tray. On Samsung phones, this is called One UI Home - which is what we’re focusing on here. Of course, you can make bigger changes by moving to a totally different launcher -and we have a guide on how to do that here- but that can dramatically change the character of your phone and many people will want to preserve the Samsung look and feel of their device.
How to find your Samsung home screen: Navigation options
Gestures arrived on Android with version 10 in 2019 and changed the way that many people used their phones. Samsung has continued to offer buttons for navigation or gestures. But most of the Android world is now designed around gestures, as buttons take up more screen space.
The controls for these can be found in settings > display > navigation bar. Here you’re able to choose between buttons or swipe gestures - with instructions on how to use both. If you opt for buttons, you’ll have a physical home button in the centre you can tap to return to the home screen - but you can also choose to have the recent apps and back button either way round to suit your preference.
We’d recommend sticking to gestures navigation because the back swipe from the edge of the screen makes everyday use much more fluid. To return to the home screen when using gesture navigation, you just swipe up from the bottom of the screen and you’ll be back to the home screen.
How to change the wallpaper on a Samsung phone
One of the first things you might want to do is change the wallpaper on your phone. This is a pretty standard process, but we’ll cover it off anyway.Samsungoffers a range of wallpapers on phones as standard, although they’re not always that exciting.
Press and hold on the home screen and you’ll get the option to change the wallpaper at the bottom of the page. You can choose from Samsung’s images or any of your own - as well as being able to customise the colour palette across the device based on the colours of the wallpaper, following Android’s Material You model.
How to change your Samsung home screen pages
Be default you’ll have a number of home screens, probably three. There’s the main screen and then what you’re offered if you swipe left or right. One of these is an information screen, which by default will show you Google Discover. This can be changed to other services and this may differ regionally - Samsung Free is currently offered on our UK device, but we’ve seen Flipboard and other services in this slot.
Just press and hold on the home screen wallpaper and you can edit the home screen pages, as well as the information page. Just swipe and you’ll find the option to toggle the service you want, or turn off completely - or to add or remove home screen pages.
You can delete pages even when filled with apps - but you’ll be asked to confirm you want to do that. The advantage of having more home screens is that you fill them with apps or widgets you want access to, or you can remove them and just have one.
How to add app shortcuts to your home screen
This is a standard Android process, but if you want an app shortcut on your home screen, just swipe up to access the apps tray, then press and hold on an app icon. A pop-up menu will appear and you can tap “add to home”, or you can drag to the top of the page, where the apps tray will close and you can drag it to where you want on the home screen.
How to add the apps tray button to the home screen
If you don’t like the swiping, you can add a button to open the apps tray. To access this, long press on the wallpaper of your home screen and then tap settings when the menu appears at the bottom. Then you can toggle on “show apps screen button on home screen”. Simple.
How to create folders on the home screen
This is where things get a little more advanced. Folders are the best way to organise your apps for easy access. If you use a selection of apps regularly, you’re able to create a folder for them on your home screen so they’re just a tap away - without filling the whole screen with icons.
Firstly you’ll need to add some app shortcuts to your home screen using the method above. Then, drag one icon over another and a folder will automatically be created. Once a folder is created, just open it up and you’ll see your apps and you may then tap the + to add more apps, tap the title to change the name, or even change the colour.
Just don’t fill it with too many apps, otherwise it’s more difficult to use and you might as well stick to using the apps tray - we’d recommend sticking to about nine apps in a folder. You might have a social media folder, games folder or banking apps folder for example.
How to add widgets to your home screen
Widgets will give you specific information from an app without having to open the app itself. If you always want to see something specific, a widget might be the best way to do it. Again, press and hold on the home screen and in the menu that appears at the bottom of the page, you’ll find widgets.
Tap on this and you’ll find a selection of widgets on offer. Scroll through the apps and find what you want - tap on them and press “add” and they will appear on your home screen. Then you can press and hold on a widget to drag them where you want - and you can resize by dragging the box that appears.
Pro tip: you can also stack widgets. If you want access to a widget by don’t want your screen full of them, you can press and hold on a widget and tap the option to “create stack”. Then you can select another widget and add it in. You can then swipe through the widgets to see the information. Once you have a stack, press and hold on it again and you can edit it, including allowing rotation of the widgets, or to remove or add more.
How to alphabetise your Samsung apps tray
Samsung offers a number of ways to organise your apps tray. Open it up and tap the menu icon top right (the three dots in the search bar). Here you’ll find the option to sort - and this can be alphabetical or custom, which lets you drag them around into any order you want.
How to create folder in the apps tray
One way to reduce the pages in the apps tray is to create folders. This is essentially the same as creating a folder on your home screen, by dragging one app over the top of another. Once you’ve created a folder, you’re able to open it up and add more apps by pressing the + button or by dragging more in.
One thing to note is that if you’re using alphabetical order, the name of your folder will dictate its position - so watch out for that. It’s also worth noting that you can drag folders from your apps tray to your home screen if you want to.
To delete a folder, just press and hold on it and you’ll see the option to delete it. This will return the icons to your apps tray as normal.
One great thing you may do is create a folder for apps you don’t use. Samsung will often add apps you don’t want, so you can create junk folder and just put all those app in there so they’re out of the way.
