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Samsung

Guides for Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 10.5

558 guides

Calls & Messages2

Send a Text Message (SMS/MMS)

Your text keeps splitting into multiple parts or a photo won't attach when you try to send a quick message on your Samsung phone. Both issues come down to how the Messages app switches between SMS and MMS depending on content and length. Knowing which mode is active helps you avoid extra charges and failed sends.

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Storage & Backup2

Activate a Downloaded Keyboard

A new keyboard from the Play Store shows up as installed but never appears as an option when you try to switch input methods. Samsung keeps every keyboard disabled by default until you turn it on in the keyboard management settings. Without this step, the downloaded keyboard stays invisible even though it is already on your phone.

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Calls & Messages2

Import Contacts from SIM or vCard File

If your contacts are stuck on an old SIM card or sitting in a vCard (.vcf) file, they won't show up in your phone until you pull them into the right account. Samsung phones can grab contacts from the SIM, internal storage, or a memory card, but picking the wrong source or target account is the most common reason the import seems to fail.

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Other2

Turn On Secret Mode in the Internet App

If browsing history, cookies, and saved form data keep showing up after you close a tab, the Internet app is still saving everything by default. Secret mode stops Samsung's browser from storing history, cookies, site data, or site permissions for the whole browsing session, not just one tab. On a shared device or public Wi-Fi, skipping this setting leaves a full trail behind for the next person who opens the browser.

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Network & Connectivity

Show or Hide Date and Location in Gallery Photos

If the photo details in the Gallery only show file size and resolution, but never a place name, geotagging was probably switched off when the shot was taken. The date and location overlay only works retroactively for pictures that already carry that metadata.

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Network & Connectivity2

Select Network Automatically

If your Samsung phone keeps losing signal or sticks to a weak carrier after you picked a network by hand, the automatic search feature is switched off. Once you select a network manually, Select automatically stays disabled until you turn it back on yourself. This mostly shows up while traveling or right after inserting a new SIM.

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Calls & Messages2

Show or Hide Calendar Accounts

The Samsung Calendar app lists every signed-in account, including My phone, Gmail, your Samsung account, App Events and Reminder, whether you want to see them or not. There is no option to permanently delete one of these entries from the calendar list. The only control you have is switching each account's visibility on or off.

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Notifications & Focus

Turn Navigation Gesture Vibrations On or Off

Every tap on the navigation bar buttons triggers a short buzz on your Samsung phone, and that constant vibration gets annoying fast if you swipe through apps often. The feedback comes from a separate haptic setting for navigation gestures, not the general vibration toggle, so switching off standard notification vibration does not stop it. You need the dedicated system control instead.

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Calls & Messages

Mark All Messages as Read

When messages pile up from several conversations, opening each chat just to clear the unread badge gets tedious fast. On Samsung phones, unread counts can stack up in the Messages app, especially after being offline or on Do Not Disturb for a while. A single option lets you clear every unread badge without tapping into each conversation one by one.

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Notifications & Focus2

Turn Notification Reminders On or Off

By default your Samsung phone only announces a new notification once, with a tone or vibration depending on the sound mode. If you tend to miss messages because you were busy or the screen was off, a single alert is not enough. Notification reminders let the device nudge you again at a set interval until you actually open the notification.

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Apps & Installation2

Force Stop an App

When an app on your Samsung phone stops responding, swiping it away from the recent apps overview usually does not help. That gesture only tells the app to wrap up background tasks, it does not kill a stuck process. If a software glitch is blocking the app, it keeps running in the background, drains battery, or leaves the screen frozen.

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Network & Connectivity2

Move Contacts to Another Storage Location

If your contacts are split between the SIM card, the phone memory and a synced account, finding the right entry can get confusing fast. Samsung's contact app lets you shift entries from one storage location to another without deleting and re-adding them. This matters most when you swap SIM cards, switch accounts, or clean up duplicate entries after a sync.

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Photo, Video & Media2

Save a Web Page as PDF

Recipes, route planners or a step-by-step guide often disappear once you close the tab, lose signal or the page gets updated. Bookmarking only keeps a link, and the offline saving option in the Samsung Internet browser does not always preserve the layout. Exporting the page as a PDF keeps the text, images and formatting stored directly on your phone.

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Battery & Power2

Turn Adaptive Power Saving On or Off

If apps you rarely open stop sending notifications or refuse to sync in the background, Adaptive power saving is likely throttling them without asking you first. This automation tracks how often you use each app and quietly cuts background access to the ones it decides you barely need. Turning it off hands manual control back to you for every app's power behavior.

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Calls & Messages2

Send a Group Text Message

Typing out the same text to five people one by one gets old fast, and picking each contact by hand in Messages is easy to mess up. If you already saved a group of people in Contacts, there is a faster way to reach everyone at once without adding them individually. The trick is knowing where the Groups option actually sits inside the Messages app.

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Apps & Installation2

Reset App Preferences

If a link keeps opening in the wrong app, notifications stay silent, or a permission you never touched suddenly blocks a feature, one of your apps might have leftover setting changes piling up. Instead of checking every app individually, Samsung lets you roll all app preferences back to default in one step. This does not remove any app data, so accounts, files, and photos stay untouched.

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Storage & Backup2

Turn Google Drive Backup On or Off

If your Samsung phone seems to back up the same data twice, Google Drive backup might be running alongside Samsung Cloud without you noticing. This can quietly eat into your Google storage or leave you unsure which backup actually holds your latest photos and app data. Knowing where this toggle sits helps you decide which backup system to rely on.

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Other2

Turn Autofill Service On or Off

If your phone keeps filling in the wrong username, an old address, or a password you no longer use, the Autofill service is likely set to a provider you did not choose. On Samsung phones this function can pull data from Google, from Samsung Pass, or be switched off completely, and mixing providers often causes those wrong entries or missing suggestions in login and shipping forms.

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Other2

Delete a Conversation

Deleting single texts one by one takes forever when an entire chat thread is cluttering your Messages app. On Samsung phones you can remove a full conversation at once, including every SMS or MMS it contains, instead of clearing messages individually.

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Other2

Change Mobile Data Usage Limit

On many Samsung phones, mobile data cuts off automatically once usage hits a limit you never chose yourself. The phone applies its own default cutoff instead of a value based on your actual plan, so the connection can drop mid-month without warning. Mobile data only comes back once the new billing cycle starts, unless you raise the limit yourself.

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Display & Home Screen2

Create a Folder on the Home Screen

Your Home screen fills up fast when every app gets its own icon, and scrolling through several pages just to find one app gets tiresome. Samsung lets you group icons into folders, but the option only shows up once you enter the icon selection mode instead of a regular menu. Missing that step is usually why people give up before finding Create folder.

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Battery & Power2

Turn Adaptive Battery On or Off

If notifications from an app you rarely open arrive late or not at all, Adaptive battery is probably holding that app in a deeper sleep state in the background. The feature only limits background activity for apps you barely use and leaves apps you open daily untouched. It has no effect on screen brightness or overall device performance, so switching it off will not speed up your phone.

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Network & Connectivity2

Connect to Wi-Fi via QR Code

Typing out a long WLAN password on a guest's phone wastes time and usually ends in a typo or two. Samsung's Wi-Fi QR code scanner reads the network credentials straight from another device's shared code, so you skip manual entry completely. The catch: the other device has to generate and display that QR code first before your phone can scan it.

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Notifications & Focus2

Turn On/Off Bedtime Mode

If your Samsung phone suddenly switches to grayscale and notifications stop coming through at night, Bedtime mode is likely active. Held-back alerts only appear once the scheduled period ends, which can make it look like your phone stopped receiving messages entirely. This differs from Do Not Disturb, since Bedtime mode also dims the display and can run on a fixed schedule.

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