Allow or Mute Alarm and Notification Sounds During Calls
If alarms and notification sounds keep interrupting your calls, or you cannot hear them at all until you hang up, the Notify during calls option is behind it. This setting decides whether the phone plays alert sounds while a call is active or holds them back until you finish talking. Getting the behavior you actually want means knowing where this toggle lives and what it affects.
Show or Hide Caller ID on Outgoing Calls
Your number pops up on the other person's screen even though you never turned that on, or it stays hidden when you need it visible for work calls. This behavior comes from a network-level default that Samsung phones inherit unless you change it in the phone app. The setting sits separate from Do Not Disturb or blocking and gets missed easily.
Lock or Unlock Home Screen Layout
If apps and widgets keep shifting position on your Samsung home screen, or a new app suddenly lands in the wrong spot, the layout is probably unlocked. This lets the system rearrange icons automatically and lets accidental long-presses move things around. Locking the layout stops both issues at once.
Turn Subtitles On or Off
If captions stay off during video playback or look different from app to app, you are probably dealing with two separate subtitle systems on your Samsung phone. Samsung subtitles and Google subtitles (CC) both add captions but sit in different menus and offer different styling options. Knowing which one is active decides whether size, color and background of the text can even be changed.
Add an Email Account (POP3/IMAP)
If your T-Online, Web.de or GMX address isn't showing up next to Gmail on your Samsung phone, it hasn't been linked through the right protocol yet. Samsung phones rely on the Gmail app as a collective inbox, but external providers only connect through POP3 or IMAP. Picking the wrong option here is why mail sometimes never arrives.
Delete Photos or Videos in Gallery
Storage warnings, an ex's photos, or a blurry shot that never should have been kept - there are plenty of reasons to clear out your Gallery. Deleting one file at a time works, but scrolling through dozens of photos or videos individually gets tedious fast. Samsung Gallery also routes deleted items into a Trash folder first, which confuses a lot of people expecting an instant, permanent delete.
Set Up Fingerprint Unlock
If your Samsung phone only wakes up with a pattern, PIN, or password, the fingerprint sensor sits unused even though it can unlock the device just as reliably. This usually happens because Fingerprints was never switched on in the lock screen settings, even after a fingerprint got registered. Without that toggle enabled, every unlock still needs the full pattern or code, no matter how many fingerprints are stored.
Exclude Apps from Automatic Sleep Mode
If a messaging or fitness app stops sending notifications hours after you last opened it, Samsung's background power management is probably putting it into deep sleep. Apps in that state get delayed sync, skip background refreshes, and often miss push alerts. You can protect specific apps from this automatic sleep behavior instead of disabling battery optimization for everything.
Change Calendar View
The Samsung Calendar app opens in month view by default, even if you prefer to track events by day or week. Switching to a different layout is done through a menu option that is easy to overlook the first time you look for it.
Export Contacts as vCard
Switching to a new phone or backing up your contact list only works if you can get every saved entry out of the Contacts app in one file. Without exporting first, you are left copying numbers one by one. Samsung phones can bundle everything into a single vCard file that other devices, apps and services can read.
Bixby Vision: Scan Objects with the Camera
When you point the camera at a product, plant, or piece of text and get no info back, Bixby Vision is either turned off or missing a connection. The feature needs an active Wi-Fi or mobile data link plus a signed-in Samsung account to pull results. Without both, the camera viewfinder just shows the live image with no overlay.
Create a Contact Group
Sending the same text to five people one at a time gets old fast, and forwarding photos to the same circle of friends over and over wastes time. Samsung's Contacts app lets you bundle recipients into a group, so calls, texts, and emails go out to everyone at once. You can also give the group its own ringtone to spot incoming calls immediately.
Turn Silent Mode On or Off
If your Samsung phone still vibrates or plays sounds after you think you muted it, you might be mixing up Silent mode with Do Not Disturb or Mute all sounds. Each of these three functions behaves differently, and picking the wrong one leads to missed calls or unwanted noise at the wrong moment. Knowing which mode actually does what saves you from constant trial and error.
Turn Camera Voice Commands On or Off
If your Samsung phone only snaps a photo when you tap the shutter button, press a volume key or use a floating release, you might be missing the hands-free option. Samsung Camera also supports a voice shutter that lets you say a command instead of touching the screen. This only works once the Voice commands option is switched on in the camera settings.
Change Call Vibration Pattern
If every incoming call feels like the same long buzz, your Samsung phone is still set to the standard call vibration. One UI actually ships with several distinct patterns, including a heartbeat, a knocking rhythm and a waltz-style pulse, but most people never notice the option exists. Picking a different pattern helps you tell calls apart from notifications by feel alone, without looking at the screen.
Clear Call Log
Every incoming, outgoing, missed and rejected call stays listed in the Samsung Phone app until you remove it yourself. Old numbers, call times, durations and even the SIM card used pile up over weeks, which can be a privacy issue if someone else picks up your phone. There is no automatic cleanup, so the log only grows unless you clear it manually.
Turn Screen Rotation On or Off
If your Samsung screen stays locked in portrait mode even when you turn the device sideways, the Auto rotate function is switched off. The opposite problem also happens: the display keeps flipping between portrait and landscape when you just want it to stay put. Both behaviors come down to a single quick setting that controls whether the screen follows the physical orientation of the phone.
Turn On/Off Color Correction
If reds and greens blend together on your Samsung screen, or blue tones look washed out, reading charts, icons and notifications gets harder. This is usually not a display defect but an unadjusted color vision setting. Samsung includes filters for different types of color blindness, but they only help once enabled and matched to the right type.
Delete a Calendar Event
Cancelled appointments and outdated entries stay visible in the Samsung Calendar until you remove them manually. Old events pile up in the daily view and make it harder to spot what is actually still coming up. Deleting a single entry does not affect any other appointments stored in the calendar.
Turn Bixby Launch on the Side Key On or Off
Long-pressing the power button used to switch off your Samsung phone, but on newer devices the same press launches Bixby instead. Samsung renamed the power button to a Side key and moved its behavior into a separate menu. If you keep triggering Bixby by accident while trying to turn the phone off, the Side key settings are where the conflict actually sits.
Turn On/Off Faster Face Recognition
If your Samsung phone unlocks even when someone holds up a photo or video of your face, the Faster recognition option is likely turned on. This setting speeds up face unlock but skips some of the depth checks that normally block spoofing attempts. Turning it off makes recognition a touch slower but much harder to trick.
Add a Keyboard Language
Your Samsung keyboard only offers the system language by default, so a German-language phone types German everywhere, even in messages you want to write in English or another language. Switching between alphabets or typing foreign words forces constant autocorrect fights. The fix sits in the Samsung Keyboard settings, but the option to add extra input languages is buried several menus deep and easy to miss.
Allow or Deny Picture-in-Picture Access
If a video keeps playing in a floating window even after you close the app, or that floating window never shows up at all, the picture-in-picture permission for the app is set the wrong way. Samsung manages this per app, separate from the general multitasking settings, so one app can float freely while another stays blocked. Checking this permission clears up both problems in a few taps.
Turn On/Off Recycle Bin in Gallery
Deleted a photo or video by mistake and worried it is gone for good? On Samsung phones, the Gallery app can hold deleted files in a Trash folder before removing them permanently. If that safety net is switched off, one accidental swipe or tap on Delete removes the file immediately with no way back.