I’m lazy. I want my phone to do what I want with as little effort as possible, and especially with not having to dig around in settings or in my app tray. From the quickest way possible to turn your phone into a 5G hotspot to easily taking screenshots without having to press multiple buttons, I found a bunch of shortcuts that save a lot of time and that avoids opening certain apps and settings and they’ve made using Android so much better. Here are six such shortcuts.
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Turn your phone into a 5G hotspot
Right from your notification shade
Using your Android as a 5G hotspot is a necessity at a time when almost no laptops have built-in 5G. And with most people having unlimited data plans these days, you can take advantage of the 5G modem you have in your pocket by using your phone as a hotspot.
Setting up a hotspot is easy enough, but requires you to dig into settings to set it up.
Instead, you can add a shortcut to your phone’s hotspot functionality by adding a quick tile for it. To do this, open your notificaion shade and expand it to reveal the quick tiles, then just press the edit (pencil) button next to your quick tiles. Look under Connectivity, and press the plus button where you see the Hotspot icon. Now you have a faster way to the hotspot.
The next shortcut is the fastest way to turn on your flashlight.
Turn on the flashlight from your lockscreen
With lockscreen shortcuts
Your lockscreen has two shortcuts you can customize, and while you can pick from ten different shortcuts, by far my favorite is the flashlight because it’s a real tool I use daily. When it’s set up as a lockscreen shortcut, you can easily turn on the light by tapping and holding on the icon after first waking up your lockscreen by lifting your phone or tapping your screen.
To set this up, go to Settings > Display & Touch > Lock screen > Shortcuts. From here you can pick your left and right shortcut.
On Samsung Galaxy, the path is a bit different. Go to Settings > Wallpaper and style > tap the lockscreen preview on the left > tap one of the shortcuts to change them. Samsung actually lets you pick from 12 tools but also launch any app right from the lockscreen.
Next we’ll cover the shortcut that lets you open your camera instantly.
The power button launches the camera or wallet
Even when the screen is off
This is a shortcut I use many times per day so that I can launch my camera instantly from any screen, or even if the screen is off (to save time, sometimes I even launch the camera while it’s still in my pocket).
Not only that, but did you know you can also set up a double-press of the power button to open Google Wallet? If you use Google Wallet to store your cards and passes, this might be a better option.
To turn this on, go to Settings > System > Gestures > Double press power button > Turn on and pick Camera or Wallet.
On a Samsung, this option is found in Settings > Advanced Features > Side button > Double press.
Jump right to your quick tiles
Use two fingers to swipe instead of one
I spend a lot of time in Android’s quick tiles in the notification shade. In fact, you can even use it as an app launcher. But the problem is that opening your quick tiles panel often requires two actions, unless you know the shortcut. By default, you must swipe down on your notification shade to open it, then a second time to open the quick tiles.
Instead, just use two fingers to swipe down from the top of the screen, and it’ll open your quick tiles right away.
On a Samsung Galaxy, this two-finger gesture doesn’t work. Instead, to go right to your quick tiles, use one finger to drag down from the upper right of your screen.
Tap your phone to take a screenshot
Just set up Quick Tap
I’m surprised by how often I take screenshots on my phone, whether to save something for later (which Pixel Screenshots is great for) or just to show someone something. But by default, taking a screenshot requires two hands to press a combination of the power and volume down button.
I use a shortcut with the back tap gesture built into Android so that with a firm double tap of the back of the phone, I can take a screenshot quickly and one-handed.
To set this up, go to Settings > System > Gestures > Quick Tap to start actions > Take screenshots. From this menu, you can choose several other shortcuts that can trigger when you tap the back of your phone twice, like bringing up Gemini, opening your notification shade or even toggling the flashlight. Getting “the tap” right requires some practice — you’ll want to focus your tap around the logo on the back of your phone.
To do Quick Tap on Samsung Galaxy (which Samsung calls Back Tap), you have to install a Good Lock module as this functionality is not built in. First open Good Lock and download RegiStar. Once you do that, go to Back-Tap action, turn it on, then specify what you want to happen with a double or triple tap.
Ask Gemini anything
Long press the power button
You never need to open the Gemini app to ask it a question. There’s a shortcut built right into the power button that lets you press and hold the button to bring up Gemini, even from a screen-off state.
To set up this shortcut, go to Settings > System > Gestures > Press & hold power button > Digital assistant.
On Samsung Galaxy, the path to this setting is Settings > Advanced features > Side button > Long press.
Don’t do things the long way in Android
Shortcuts save you time
It takes a bit of habit-tweaking to force yourself to use these shortcuts, but once muscle memory kicks in, you’ll be launching apps just from buttons and gestures faster than you would otherwise, with much less time spent opening apps to do the things you do every day.