Forward an SMS Message
If you want to pass on a text you received without retyping it, EMUI hides the forward option inside the message menu rather than as a visible button. This is why many Huawei users only send screenshots instead of the actual message.
Allow Calls Through Do Not Disturb
When Do Not Disturb is active on a Huawei phone, urgent calls can get silenced along with everything else, so an important contact never gets through. EMUI lets you carve out exceptions so specific calls still ring while the rest stays muted. Getting this wrong usually means either missed calls from people who matter or a phone that keeps buzzing during focus time.
Enable or Disable Dial Pad Sounds
Every tap on the Huawei dialer can trigger a beep or tone, and that gets annoying fast if you dial numbers in a quiet room or share the phone with someone who hates the noise. The keypad tones setting controls whether you hear anything at all and which tone plays. Switching between None, Default and Melody changes how the phone reacts to every digit you press.
Set Up a VPN Connection
Public Wi-Fi hotspots and open mobile networks let anyone nearby read your unencrypted traffic. On a Huawei phone the built-in VPN client stays empty until a server profile is added, so the connection option does nothing on its own. Once a valid server address, protocol and login details are entered, the phone tunnels your data, hides your IP and reaches sites that would otherwise be blocked.
Assign a Custom Ringtone to a Contact
If every call sounds the same, you always have to glance at the screen to see who is calling. Assigning a personal ringtone to a specific contact lets you recognize important callers by sound alone, even with the phone in your pocket or across the room.
Change System Navigation Type
If the on-screen buttons at the bottom of your Huawei phone feel cramped, or you keep hitting the back button by accident, the navigation style is worth changing. Huawei phones default to Three-key navigation, but Gestures and the floating NaviDot are also available. Picking the wrong option can interfere with accessibility shortcuts tied to the navigation bar.
Lock Screen Notifications: Show or Hide
Anyone who picks up your Huawei phone can read message previews straight off the lock screen if notifications are set to show full content. That becomes a problem on shared desks, in meetings, or whenever you hand the phone to someone else for a moment. Huawei lets you keep alerts visible while hiding the actual text, or turn lock screen notifications off entirely.
Turn Outgoing Message Sound On or Off
Every message you send from a Huawei phone plays a short confirmation tone by default. In quiet environments or during calls, that sound can feel out of place. The setting controlling it sits inside the Messages app itself, not in the general sound settings, which is why many people can't find it right away.
Turn Alarm On or Off
If your alarm doesn't ring in the morning, chances are the switch got flipped off by accident, not the alarm itself getting deleted. Huawei phones keep every alarm you set stored in the Clock app, so you never have to rebuild the same wake-up time from scratch. Knowing exactly where that switch sits saves you from re-entering the time, label, and repeat days over and over.
Quick Prediction Insert: Enable or Disable
If Huawei's SwiftKey keyboard inserts a suggested word the moment you tap the space bar, quick prediction insert is active. This happens before you finish typing the word yourself, which can break sentences you did not mean to autocomplete. The feature only works when autocorrect is turned on.
Show Battery Percentage
If your status bar only shows a plain battery icon with no numbers, you are left guessing how much charge your Huawei phone has left. EMUI hides the exact battery percentage by default and only displays a rough fill level. Turning this option on replaces the guesswork with a precise readout right in the status bar.
Manage Device Administrators
If an app refuses to uninstall or keeps triggering warnings about admin rights, it likely still holds device administrator status on your Huawei phone. Device administrator permissions let an app change system settings, lock the screen or wipe stored data - access many apps request without a clear explanation. Turning off the wrong administrator can break features like Find My Phone or a company profile, so you need to know exactly which app is authorized before switching anything off.
Enable or Disable Google Play Protect
If Google Play Protect keeps flagging a trusted app as harmful or blocks an install you actually want, the scanner is doing exactly what it's built for on your Huawei phone. It checks every app during and after download and rechecks apps from unknown sources on a schedule, then notifies you when it finds a risk. Switching it off stops the warnings, but it also removes that ongoing background scan from your device.
Assign a Picture to a Contact
If a contact still shows a generic icon instead of a photo when they call or text you, no picture has been linked to that entry yet. Huawei lets you attach either an existing photo from your gallery or a freshly taken picture to any saved contact. Without this link, calls and messages stay visually anonymous even after all other details have been saved.
Enable Emergency SOS Messages
If a Huawei phone does not send your location to trusted contacts during an emergency, the SOS message option under Security is probably switched off. Pressing the power button five times in a row is meant to trigger a call and an SOS text, but that only works once emergency contacts are saved and the message option is active. Without a saved contact list, the call still goes through, but no location text gets sent.
Set a Custom Timer Tone
On a Huawei phone, the timer in the Clock app always shows a small bell icon next to the countdown, but many people never open it to pick a different sound. The default timer tone plays until you swap it out from the built-in sound list. Once you choose a new tone, it applies to every timer you start afterward, not just the current one.
Block Unknown Numbers
Anonymous or withheld numbers keep ringing your Huawei phone even though you never answer them. This happens because call blocking for private numbers is turned off by default in the Phone app, so every masked caller gets through until you change that setting.
Enable or Disable Auto-Rotate Screen
When you tilt your Huawei phone sideways, the screen sometimes stays locked in portrait instead of switching to landscape. This usually happens because Auto-rotate got switched off, either by accident or through a stray tap in the quick settings panel. Without it active, apps like your gallery, browser or video player will not adjust to how you actually hold the phone.
Reset Advertising ID
If ads on your Huawei phone feel oddly specific, the Advertising ID stored on your device is the reason. Apps and ad networks use this identifier to link your browsing and app behavior over time, even across different services. Resetting it breaks that chain and hands you a new, unlinked ID.
Manually Select a Mobile Network
Near a border or in a rural area, your Huawei phone might latch onto a foreign network that offers a stronger signal instead of your home carrier. This happens because automatic network search always prioritizes reception over your default provider. Roaming charges or dropped data sessions are the usual result until you pick the carrier yourself.
Enable or Disable Dual Clocks
Travel to a different time zone with your Huawei phone and the lock screen suddenly shows two clocks side by side. That second clock reflects your home city time and keeps appearing until you switch the dual clocks feature off or update the home time zone yourself.
Enable or Disable Switch Access
If touch gestures are not reliable for you, standard navigation on your Huawei phone turns into a real barrier. Switch Access lets you select items, scroll and type using one or more external switches instead of tapping the screen. Those switches connect via USB or pair over Bluetooth, but the toggle for the feature is tucked away in a menu most people never open.
Enable or Disable Cell Broadcasts
Getting a flood of monthly test alerts on your Huawei phone, or missing a real emergency warning entirely? Both come down to the cell broadcast settings, which control AMBER alerts, extreme and severe threat notifications separately from your regular messages. Each alert type can be switched on or off on its own.
Show SIM Card Messages
Old text messages you sent or received years ago sometimes disappear from your inbox after a SIM swap or a factory reset, even though they still physically sit on the SIM card. Huawei phones do not display these by default because the Messages app only loads device storage first. They are not deleted, just hidden from the normal conversation view.