Create a Folder on the Home Screen
When your Huawei home screen fills up with scattered app icons, finding the app you need turns into a scroll-and-search game. Grouping related apps into a folder clears space and keeps similar tools together. EMUI builds this folder automatically once you combine two app icons.
Add a Birthday to a Contact
Saved contacts on your Huawei phone often stay incomplete right after you save the first number. Without a birthday field filled in, your phone can never remind you when that date comes around. Adding it later takes a few taps in the contact details.
Set Default Keyboard
New keyboard app installed but Swiftkey keeps popping up instead? Huawei phones use Swiftkey as the default keyboard, and extra keyboards you install do not switch on by themselves. You need to activate the keyboard you want before it shows up when typing.
Enable or Disable Eye Comfort
Harsh white light late at night can strain your eyes fast, especially when you are reading on your Huawei phone in a dark room. Eye Comfort shifts the display to warmer tones and reduces blue light, but the toggle and the automatic schedule option are easy to miss in the settings. Without it active, your screen keeps its full brightness and cool color temperature no matter the time of day.
Add a Printer Manually via IP Address
If your Huawei phone lists no printers during the network scan, the WLAN or WiFi Direct discovery has failed to reach the device. This happens on isolated subnets, guest networks, or with printer models that block broadcast discovery. Adding the printer by its IP address skips the automatic search entirely.
Switch Between 12-Hour and 24-Hour Time
If your Huawei phone displays 3:45 PM instead of 15:45, or the other way round, the clock format is likely tied to your system language rather than a fixed choice. This dependency means switching language can silently change how time appears on the lock screen, notifications, and widgets. A manual toggle for 24-hour time removes that guesswork.
Restrict App Access to Mobile Data or Wi-Fi
If a video streaming app keeps burning through your mobile data plan even when you are not actively watching anything, background network access is usually the cause. Some apps also switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data without asking, which drains your data allowance faster than expected. You decide per app whether it may use mobile data, Wi-Fi, or both.
Change the System Language
If your Huawei phone still runs in the language you set up years ago, you don't have to reset the device to fix that. EMUI lets you add extra languages under Language and region, but a newly added language stays inactive until it's moved to the top of the list. Skip that step and the phone keeps using the old language no matter how many times you pick the new one.
Screen Lock Tone: Enable or Disable
Every time you lock your Huawei phone with the power button, a short click plays and there is no obvious switch for it inside the main sound menu. If that beep annoys you, or it suddenly disappeared after you changed a sound profile, the toggle actually sits inside a secondary settings screen. Keep in mind the tone stays silent automatically whenever your phone is set to Mute or Silent, even if the toggle itself is turned on.
Restore Deleted Contacts
Accidentally deleted a contact on your Huawei phone and now it seems gone for good? EMUI actually keeps deleted contacts in a temporary folder instead of removing them right away. That window closes automatically after a set number of days, so the contact becomes unrecoverable once it expires.
Wake Screen for Notifications
If your Huawei phone display stays black when a new message or notification arrives, the wake screen option is likely turned off. This setting controls whether the screen lights up automatically for incoming alerts, separate from your normal lock screen timeout. Without it, you only see new notifications after pressing the power button yourself.
Enable Gentle Notifications for an App
Every notification on your Huawei phone triggers a sound, a vibration and a full pop-up by default, even for apps you only check occasionally. If a chat or news app keeps interrupting you but you still want to see missed messages later, muting it completely removes that overview. Gentle notifications quiet the alert while keeping a discreet trace of it in the notification panel.
Enable Read in Background for Select to Speak
If Select to Speak stops reading the moment you switch to another app on your Huawei phone, the background reading option is turned off. This feature is still experimental and can behave unpredictably in some apps.
Allow or Deny Picture-in-Picture for an App
If a video freezes the moment you switch to another app, or a floating window never shows up while you type a message, the picture-in-picture permission for that app is probably the issue. Some apps get this permission by default, others need it turned on manually before the pop-up window works. Checking which side an app is on saves a lot of guessing.
Set Sound and Vibration for Calendar Reminders
If calendar reminders on your Huawei phone stay silent or skip the vibration you expect, the notification sound for the Calendar app is usually set to Mute or the vibration toggle got switched off. This sits separately from your general ringtone settings, so changing your phone's ringtone won't fix it. A quick check inside the Calendar app settings solves it.
Manage Do Not Disturb Access for Apps
If an app on your Huawei phone keeps buzzing through Do Not Disturb, it has been granted permission to bypass that mode entirely. This usually happens after you approved a notification-related prompt without noticing what it actually allowed. Once granted, the app can send alerts, calls or messages even while your phone is set to stay silent.
Enable or Disable Do Not Disturb
If calls suddenly go straight to a busy signal or message alerts stop making a sound on your Huawei phone, Do Not Disturb is likely switched on. The mode silences calls, messages and system alerts at once, and it can also trigger itself on a schedule without you noticing. Knowing where this setting lives helps you turn it off fast or set it up the way you actually want.
Resize a Widget on the Home Screen
A widget that takes up half the screen or shows too little information usually just has the wrong size set. On Huawei phones this happens after moving a widget between home screens or after a system update resets its layout. Adjusting the size fixes cramped text and oversized tiles without removing and re-adding the widget.
Change the Region Setting
On many Huawei phones the region field switches on its own whenever the device connects to a different mobile network. This can happen right after a trip abroad or when a SIM briefly loses signal and reconnects to a foreign carrier. The automatic change can affect app stores, weather data, and date formats without any warning.
Add a Guest Account
Handing your Huawei phone to a friend or family member means they can see your photos, messages and apps unless you separate their session from yours. A guest account keeps their activity in its own space so nothing touches your personal data. It is the safest way to lend out your phone without changing any of your own settings.
Enable or Disable the Number Row
On most Huawei phones the keyboard only shows letters, so typing a phone number or a password with digits means switching to the symbols page every time. SwiftKey Keyboard has a number row option that keeps the digits visible above the letters, but it sits deep inside the typing settings and is easy to miss.
Change the App Lock PIN
If apps behind App Lock keep asking for an old code, or you want a stronger PIN, remember that App Lock on Huawei phones runs separate from your screen lock. You can update it directly inside the App Lock settings, but only after entering the current app lock code. Forgetting that code is usually what stops people before they even reach the option to change it.
Camera Audio Control
Taking a selfie alone often means holding a pose while fumbling for the shutter button. Audio control lets your Huawei camera fire the shot when it hears you say Cheese or speak loudly, but the option stays off until you switch it on in the camera settings. If your camera keeps snapping photos on its own during calls or in noisy rooms, this is usually the setting responsible.
Turn Google Location History On or Off
Even without opening a single Google app, your Huawei phone can still log where you go through Google Location History. Many people only discover this after checking their Google account and seeing a detailed timeline of past visits. This background tracking runs independently of Maps, Search, or any other Google service, and you can switch it off directly from the phone settings.