Set Dark or Light Theme for the Phone App
If the Phone app on your OnePlus always follows the system theme, calls and the dialer can look too bright at night or too dull during the day. You can override this and lock in a fixed light or dark look just for the phone app instead of tying it to the general Android theme setting. The dark option also eases strain on your eyes and can trim battery use on OLED screens.
Show or Hide the Front Camera Notch
On some OnePlus phones the front camera cutout sits in the center or on the left edge of the display, and certain apps do not adjust their layout around it correctly. Videos or games can leave a black bar next to the cutout instead of filling the whole screen. Switching between showing and hiding the notch changes how these apps render that top section of the display.
Clear App Cache
When a OnePlus app starts crashing, freezing, or showing outdated content, leftover cache files are often the cause. Temporary data can pile up and overlap over time, leading to glitches that have nothing to do with your actual settings or account. Clearing the cache resets these files without touching your personal data.
Manage Site Permissions in Chrome
If a website suddenly asks for your location or camera without warning, or a page refuses to load because cookies got blocked, the site permissions inside your OnePlus browser are responsible. Every website can hold its own access rules for cookies, location, camera and microphone, separate from your phone's system settings. Once you have granted or denied access a few times, keeping track of which sites hold which permissions gets confusing fast.
Turn Off the Phone Completely
If calls and messages still come through on your OnePlus phone even after you enable Do Not Disturb or a rest mode, that is because these modes only silence alerts instead of shutting the device down. Many users assume Do Not Disturb or the concentration mode switches the phone off, but calls, background apps and the network connection keep running underneath. To stop calls and messages completely, the phone needs a proper shutdown, not just a quiet mode.
Enable or Disable the App Drawer
If every installed app sits directly on your OnePlus home screen, finding anything quickly gets messy fast. Swiping up on a free area does nothing when the app drawer is turned off, leaving all icons scattered across multiple screens instead of tucked away in one list. This setting controls whether OnePlus keeps app icons on the home screens or moves them into a separate drawer you reach with a swipe.
Allow Messages Through Do Not Disturb
If Do Not Disturb is active on your OnePlus, incoming texts and messaging app pings often vanish into the notification shade instead of alerting you. That is a problem when a contact sends something urgent while you are asleep or in a meeting. The messaging exception setting controls which senders are still allowed to break through.
Set Date and Time Automatically
If your OnePlus phone shows the wrong time after a flight, a SIM swap or a factory reset, the clock has usually stopped syncing with the carrier network. Normally the device pulls date and time from the provider on its own, so no manual input is required. This only breaks when the network sync option gets switched off or someone picked a fixed time zone by hand.
Send Read Receipts Toggle
If your chat partners can see a Read label the moment you open their text, the Send read receipts option in the Messages app is turned on. Some people want that confirmation switched off to keep replies private, while others rely on it to know a message actually got through. The setting works independently from delivery notifications and applies to every conversation at once.
Rename a Fingerprint
Every fingerprint you register on your OnePlus phone gets a generic label like Finger 1 or Finger 2, so telling your own thumb apart from a partner's index finger later is pure guesswork. Once several prints are stored for unlocking or app logins, keeping track of who owns which slot gets confusing fast.
Power Button Ends Call Setting
Struggling to tap the on-screen End call button during an active call on your OnePlus? A hidden accessibility option lets you hang up with the power button instead, but it only works once the right setting is turned on. Leave it off and pressing the power button just locks the screen while the call keeps running.
Delete Photos and Videos
Storage filling up on your OnePlus usually comes down to old photos and videos nobody looks at anymore. Deleting them from the Gallery app does not remove them right away though, since OnePlus keeps a safety copy for a while before space is actually freed up.
Manage Game Space Settings
Install a game from the Play Store on a OnePlus phone and the icon never lands on your home screen - it only shows up inside the Game Space library. That trips up a lot of players who assume the install failed. Game Space also decides whether calls, notifications and screen taps get blocked while you play, so the wrong toggle can cost you a message or an incoming call mid-match.
Change Font Size
When text on your OnePlus looks too small to read comfortably, or too large and cramped, the system font scale is usually the cause. Apps without their own text settings simply inherit whatever size you set at the system level, which affects menus, notifications, and most third-party apps at once.
Banner Notifications for Apps
Missing an important alert, or getting a banner pop-up from an app that should stay quiet? On OnePlus phones, banner notifications only show while the screen is unlocked and depend on a per-category 'Pop on screen' setting that's easy to miss. If that toggle is off, the alert still lands in the notification panel, but it never appears as a banner at the top of the screen.
Screen Timeout / Sleep Mode Setting
If your OnePlus display stays lit far longer than you need, it drains the battery faster than almost any other component. On the other hand, a timeout that is set too short can dim the screen mid-read, which gets annoying fast. This depends on the Sleep setting in the display options, and finding the right balance matters if you also use a pattern, PIN, or fingerprint lock.
Permission Manager: Control App Access
When an app suddenly asks for camera or location access again, or you are not sure which apps can read your contacts, the Permission Manager on your OnePlus gives a clear per-function overview. Instead of digging through each app individually, you pick a function like Camera or Location and see every app that currently has access to it. This makes it much faster to spot apps that have no real reason to hold a sensitive permission.
Change the Keyboard Layout
When you set up your OnePlus phone with a specific language and region, Gboard adds a matching keyboard layout automatically. If that default layout does not match how you actually type, for example a different regional QWERTY variant, the key positions and autocorrect behavior can feel off from the start. You can add and switch to another layout for the same keyboard language without losing the language pack itself.
Enable or Disable Screen Lock Sound
Every time you lock your OnePlus with the power button, a short lock tone plays automatically. If that click feels unnecessary or gives away that you're checking your phone in a quiet room, you can turn it off - or bring it back later without touching any other sound setting.
Delete Learned Words and Keyboard Data on OnePlus
If Gboard on your OnePlus keeps suggesting outdated typos, old contact names, or words you only typed once, the learned word dictionary has grown too large. This personal dictionary builds up over time and can start pushing irrelevant suggestions ahead of the words you actually want to type. Clearing it resets predictions without touching your installed keyboard or language settings.
Change Mobile Hotspot Band
If a laptop or older tablet cannot see your OnePlus hotspot at all, or a newer device only gets a weak signal through walls, the wrong Wi-Fi band is usually the cause. The personal hotspot on OnePlus phones can broadcast on either the 2.4 GHz or the 5.0 GHz band, and each has different trade-offs for range and speed. Picking the wrong one for your situation leads to dropped connections or frustratingly slow transfers.
Set a Custom Alarm
If your OnePlus phone only rings with one generic alarm sound at the same time every day, you probably have not set up separate alarms for different days or purposes. The Clock app lets you create individual entries with their own time, name, repetition and tone. Without adjusting these settings per alarm, all your wake-up times end up sharing the same schedule and sound.
Enable System-Wide Captions
If videos in some apps show no subtitles at all, or you want a consistent caption style across your OnePlus phone instead of relying on each app's own subtitle toggle, the system-wide captioning option in Accessibility is the setting you need. This feature works independently from automatic app subtitles and lets you pick a fixed language, text size and caption style. Many users overlook it because it hides deep inside the Accessibility menu instead of the display settings.
Enable or Disable Picture-in-Picture Mode
If a video keeps floating over other apps when you did not ask for it, or a media app refuses to shrink into a small window while you check messages, picture-in-picture permission is likely the cause. This mode lets one app overlay another in a movable box, but each app needs its own permission toggle to use it. Once that toggle gets switched off for an app, the floating window simply stops showing up, even if the app itself supports the feature.