Add a Contact Photo
If your contact list on Oppo still shows plain initials instead of faces, calls and messages are harder to scan at a glance. This happens because no image has been linked to that contact yet in the Contacts app. Adding a photo works with an existing gallery picture or a new snapshot from the camera.
Forward a Message on Oppo
Retyping a text just to send it to someone else wastes time, especially when the message contains links or details you cannot easily reproduce. Oppo phones let you forward an SMS straight from the conversation, and you can also send it to a different app instead of another contact.
Turn On/Off Select to Speak
When Select to Speak is active, an extra accessibility icon shows up in the navigation bar, and tapping it lets you highlight any text on screen to have it read aloud. It works similar to TalkBack but does not take over your phone's regular touch controls. If that icon suddenly appears or disappears without you doing anything, the setting may have been toggled by accident during a system update or a shared accessibility shortcut.
Edit Quick Decline Messages
When you reject an incoming call with a quick text, Oppo phones send one of four preset replies like 'Sorry, I can't answer the phone now.' These default lines rarely match how you'd actually respond to family, friends, or coworkers. Coloros lets you rewrite all four texts, but the setting sits inside the phone app rather than Messages.
Turn Screen Rotation On or Off
If your Oppo screen refuses to switch to landscape when you turn the phone, or it flips around when you'd rather it stayed still, the Auto-rotate function is usually the cause. This setting depends on the built-in position sensor and can be changed either in the system settings or right from the quick settings panel. Some apps ignore this setting entirely and force their own orientation regardless of what you pick.
Set Default SIM Card for Calls
With two SIM cards active on your Oppo phone, the system decides on its own which SIM handles an outgoing call unless you set a fixed one. If calls keep going out on the wrong SIM, or ColorOS asks you every single time which line to use, the calling preference in your dual-SIM settings is the setting responsible.
Create Folders on Home Screen
Icons piling up on your Oppo home screen make it hard to spot the app you actually need. Dragging one icon onto another works, but it gets messy once you have more than two or three apps to group. This guide covers the dedicated folder function, which is faster when you want to sort several apps at once.
Turn On Automatic Network Selection
If your Oppo phone stopped switching carriers on its own, someone likely turned off Auto select while picking a network manually. Without automatic selection enabled, the phone stays locked to one operator even when a stronger signal sits nearby. This mostly happens on Coloros devices where the toggle hides inside the SIM card settings rather than the main network menu.
Turn Emoji Suggestions On or Off in Gboard
If Gboard keeps popping up emoji suggestions while you type, or if none show up at all even though you want them, the Show emoji suggestions option in the text correction settings is likely set the wrong way. This behavior comes from the keyboard's input prediction feature, not from the messaging app itself. A quick check in the keyboard settings usually clears it up.
Rename a Fingerprint
On Oppo phones, every fingerprint you enroll gets a generic label like Finger 1 or Finger 2 by default. Once you have three or four fingers registered, telling them apart in the security settings becomes guesswork. Giving each entry a clear name fixes that confusion for good.
Block a Phone Number from Call History
Getting repeat calls or texts from the same number on your Oppo phone and want them stopped for good? A quick way is to block that entry directly from your Call history, so future calls and messages from it get filtered out automatically. By default you still see a notification when a blocked number tries to reach you, which can throw people off if they expect it to go completely silent.
Using the Stopwatch
If you want to time an activity or track individual laps on your Oppo phone, the stopwatch inside the Clock app handles both jobs at once. Many people only notice the lap counter after already tracking split times by hand, which makes the built-in option worth knowing.
Show Device Certification Info
If you need to confirm that your Oppo phone carries the right regulatory marks for your country, the certification numbers are not printed anywhere on the case. Retailers, customs offices or repair shops sometimes ask for proof of a CE, R-NZ or FCC-ID mark before accepting a return, import or warranty claim. That information sits inside a dedicated settings screen instead of the box or manual.
Set Up Access Point Names (APN) Manually
If mobile data won't connect or SMS and MMS refuse to send on your Oppo phone, a missing or incorrect access point is usually the cause. This happens after a SIM swap, a factory reset, or when the network profile never downloaded automatically. Entering the APN by hand fixes both data and messaging in one step.
Force Stop an App
When an app on your Oppo phone freezes and stops reacting to taps, swiping it away in the recent-apps view often just hides it while the process keeps running. Force stop ends that process directly, similar to Stop task on a Windows PC. Because it kills the process without saving anything, you usually land on a login screen the next time you open the app.
Change Default Dialer App
If you have installed a second calling app on your Oppo phone, incoming calls might still open the wrong app or not ring through the app you actually want to use. This happens because ColorOS only routes calls through whichever app is set as the default phone app.
Connect to Wi-Fi via WPS
Typing a long Wi-Fi password on a small keyboard gets old fast, especially with random character strings. If your router supports WPS, your Oppo phone can skip that step entirely and pair using a physical button push instead. This only works while both devices are actively listening for the WPS handshake at the same time.
Change Home Screen Wallpaper
Tapping and holding the home screen only pulls up a handful of preset wallpapers on Coloros, so live wallpapers and your own photos are easy to miss. This happens because the quick wallpaper shortcut hides the full Wallpapers settings section, leaving many users thinking custom or animated backgrounds are not supported at all.
Turn Automatic MMS Download On or Off
MMS attachments on your Oppo phone often download the moment a message arrives, even over mobile data. On a metered plan that can add unexpected charges before you even open the message. The setting behind this behavior sits per SIM card, which is easy to miss on dual-SIM devices.
Manage Google Activity Controls
If you have not touched the Activity controls on your Oppo phone, Google keeps logging Web & App Activity, location history, YouTube history and more under the Google Account you are signed into. This tracking runs in the background and is not obvious from the main Settings screen. Left untouched, it builds a detailed profile of what you search, watch and where you go.
Set Default SIM for Mobile Data
If your Oppo keeps using the wrong SIM for internet access, calls and data can end up split across two different cards without you noticing. This gets expensive fast when the non-preferred SIM has no data plan or triggers roaming charges. Switching the default data SIM tells the phone which card to use for every mobile data connection going forward.
Create a Local Backup (Storage & Backup)
If your internet connection is too slow or unreliable for a cloud backup, or you simply don't want your data stored online, ColorOS lets you save contacts, messages, call logs, system data and installed apps directly on the device. Without a backup, a factory reset or device swap wipes anything that isn't synced to an account. The local backup can be stored in phone storage or on a memory card.
Change Home Screen Transition Effect
Swiping between home screen pages on your Oppo phone always plays the same sliding animation, even though ColorOS ships with several other transition styles. If the default motion feels plain or you want something like a cube rotation, foil turn, card flip or tilt effect instead, the option is tucked into the home screen settings rather than the main display menu.
Merge Duplicate Contacts
When the same person shows up twice in your Oppo contact list, calls land under one entry while texts go to the other, and you can never tell which number is still current. This usually happens after importing a SIM card, syncing a Google account that already held a copy, or restoring an old backup on top of existing contacts. ColorOS can spot matching names or numbers and combine them into a single record, but it only works if you point it at the right pair first.