How to customize your Samsung Galaxy phone with the Good Lock app

When you personal a Galaxy smartphone and also you haven’t already found the Samsung Good Lock app, I’d advocate getting it put in at your earliest alternative. It’s full of tweaks, instruments, and choices that construct on prime of what Samsung already places into its One UI model of Android.

Good Lock permits you to take rather more management over how your cellphone interface appears in addition to serving to you to do extra along with your cellphone. Whether or not you wish to design your personal clock face for the lock display screen, change between apps extra shortly, or change the habits of the S Pen stylus, Good Lock might help.

To get began, open the Galaxy Retailer in your Samsung cellphone, then discover and set up the Good Lock app. 

The app works by utilizing mini apps known as modules. Once you’ve put in these modules by means of Good Lock, a few of them will present up as regular apps in your cellphone in your common app drawer, whereas others will should be accessed by means of Good Lock — they’ll present up on the highest of the identical display screen you employ to put in the modules.

Once you open Good Lock, you’ll see two tabs on the backside of the display screen: Make up, the place you’ll discover customization modules, and Life up, the place you go for modules masking under-the-hood tweaks. Scroll all the way down to see what is on the market. 

There are too many modules to cowl all of them right here, however I’ve picked out a few of my favorites to get you up and operating and to present you a good suggestion of what Good Lock is able to. (I attempted them out on a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 operating Android 13 and One UI 5.1.1.)

QuickStar permits you to customise the Fast Panel — that’s the gallery of choices that seem if you drag down from the highest of the display screen, masking Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggle switches, the flashlight, and so forth. You could find it on the Make up tab.

When you’ve put in it, it’s going to seem on the prime of your Good Lock record of modules. Faucet on the entry and allow the toggle on the prime of the display screen to deliver up the customization choices.

Now you can tailor the Fast Panel to fit your personal tastes. 

• Type your personal Fast Panel permits you to change between coloration themes. 
• Visibility of Indicator Icons permits you to present or conceal components on the standing bar proper on the prime of the show (together with Wi-Fi and airplane mode icons). 
• Use Clock Settings to customise the clock that seems when the Fast Panel is proven.

There are a number of different choices out there. I discovered the Fast settings instantaneous entry toggle change to be helpful — flip this on, and the complete collection of Fast Panel settings exhibits up straight away. (Usually, one swipe exhibits a couple of key toggle switches, and one other swipe down is required to disclose the remaining.)

ClockFace, discovered underneath the Make up tab, offers you entry to a bunch of clock customizations for the lock display screen and the always-on show (in case your Galaxy cellphone helps one). When you discover the built-in choices a bit too bland and uninteresting, you possibly can actually get artistic with your personal designs.

Launch the module and select between All the time On Show and Lock display screen for which clock you wish to edit. You’ll then be met with dozens of various clocks to choose from—choose any of them, and you may faucet the checkmark icon to use it or the pen icon to edit it. When you don’t see something you want instantly, faucet My Clock and Create New to construct one thing from scratch.

Whether or not you’re creating a brand new clock face or enhancing an current one, you’ve received loads of instruments at your disposal right here. You’ll be able to select between font sizes, clock hand kinds, 12- or 24-hour codecs, totally different coloration schemes, and layouts. You’ll be able to faucet and maintain on particular person components to reposition them, and you may import new components — together with GIFs and stickers — utilizing the icons on the suitable.

When you’ve got a Galaxy cellphone that helps the S Pen stylus, head to the Make up tab to search out Pentastic. It permits you to change how S Pen interactions look on the display screen and even how the pen works, making it much more of a productiveness booster.

The primary choice you’ll see on the display screen if you’ve opened Pentastic permits you to change the dimensions and elegance of the menu that seems when the S Pen is energetic, so relatively than the usual record, you possibly can have a extra compact line or a circle. You may also change the pointer icon from the traditional circle to an arrow, a coronary heart, and even an animal emoji.

Choose Double faucet shortcut to edit what a double-tap of the S Pen does. All of the apps in your cellphone and all of the potential S Pen options (from creating notes to magnifying the display screen) can be found to you right here — so if there’s an app you want common entry to, you would possibly wish to add it right here.

The Android software program that comes along with your Galaxy cellphone permits you to customise the default interface in quite a lot of methods, however the Theme Park module on the Make up tab takes all the things to the subsequent stage — masking wallpapers, coloration schemes, icon kinds, and extra.

Once you open Theme Park for the primary time, you may be requested for storage permission in order that Theme Park can use the colours out of your picture recordsdata. Faucet Begin and Enable or Don’t permit. 

As soon as that’s executed, choose Create new, and also you’ll be requested to decide on a wallpaper picture after which a coloration scheme to go together with it. You’ll be able to select from your personal picture gallery (assuming you gave permission to try this) or choose from a collection of free and paid photographs.

You’ll see previews of how the theme goes to look alongside the best way, and you may apply the theme by tapping the set up icon within the top-right nook (It appears like a downward arrow going right into a tray.)

The opposite tabs within the module allow you to customise the keyboard, the Fast Panel, the amount slider, and the icons utilized by the theme. On the Icon tab, for example, you possibly can change the colours, the dimensions, and the form of your icons. You may also faucet Iconpack to obtain themed icon packs from Samsung and third events.

You may also customise homescreens by way of House Up on the Make up tab. Once you’ve received these tweaks arrange the best way you need, it can save you them as a profile you will get again to later.

When you’ve gone to the homepage and toggled House Up on, faucet House display screen to search out many of the modifications you can also make. Right here, you possibly can change the grid spacing of the icons in your homescreens and the app drawer, have your homescreens work as a loop (in different phrases, you possibly can swipe from the final to the primary web page and vice versa), and you may conceal the labels that present up subsequent to app icons.

Select House Up’s Activity Changer as an alternative to switch the looks of the display screen that exhibits up if you change between apps. Current apps may be stacked, proven in a grid, or proven in a carousel, and you may present or conceal components just like the search bar and the really helpful apps record.

MultiStar, on the Life up tab, is a helpful enhancement for the multitasking performance already constructed into Android and Samsung’s One UI. It’s significantly useful when you’re utilizing a foldable cellphone just like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 as a result of it could handle precisely how apps are displayed on the 2 screens you’ve received.

For instance, on the Z Fold 5, you possibly can select to make the under-display digital camera extra seen, have apps at all times transition to full-screen mode if you unfold the machine, and have apps mechanically modify as you progress between portrait and panorama modes. You merely faucet the I Love Galaxy Foldable hyperlink within the downloaded module to search out these settings and extra.

Elsewhere within the module, you’ll discover some toggle switches that make it simpler to leap between apps. Fast launch of the Multi window, for instance, permits you to launch the multitasking interface by urgent and holding on the Recents button, whereas Multi Focus units apps to at all times run as in the event that they have been the app at present being seen.

One other helpful utility is Good Catch, from the Life up tab, which is the place you possibly can go when you assume you’ve missed a notification in your cellphone or can’t keep in mind an provide you with a warning solely glanced at. It’s additionally helpful for troubleshooting issues in your cellphone.

Open up the module and toggle it on, and also you’ll see an extended record of cellphone occasions you possibly can log, from vibration alerts and displayed adverts to occasions when the amount was muted. There’s even the choice to report each time a change is made to the cellphone settings.

You faucet on the toggle switches to show every occasion class on and off. You’ll be able to then faucet on the class title and see its historical past so you possibly can retrace your steps. You want by no means miss a pop-up message or name notification once more.