When you spend a lot of your day digging into Android as you kill, you start to find ways to get things done quickly. One shortcut equals many saved tps and seconds, which is a day, a week, and more. Over time, I’ve come up with more and more interesting Android or Google-specific shortcuts that save me every day from manual and repetitive tasks of digging into settings or apps. In this article, I will share some of these shortcuts with you so that you too can experience the small joy of accessing your favorite features and settings faster and more efficiently.
Some of the pre-installed apps on our Android phones do not appear in the app drawer by default. It’s a little surprising to have them if you don’t know how to do it, so the simple trick is to launch them once and add their shortcut to your app drawer and / or homescreen.
- GabordOpen the Play Store and search for Gboard. If it is installed in your phone, you can tap Open In its store list, which goes directly to Jabord’s settings. go there Show the Advanced> Application icon And tug on it. It will be able to put a Gboard icon in your app drawer.
- Digital Wellbeing: Open your phone’s settings, scroll down Digital well-being and parental controls And open it. On the main screen of the application, you can find Show icon in application listCan be triggered.
- Live transcribe: Although you can find the app in your phone’s ibility accessibility settings, the easiest way is to find it on the Play Store. If it’s installed on your phone, open it and you’ll be promptly asked if you want to add its icon to its app list. If not, you can find the option in the app’s settings.
- Sound amplifier: To transcribe live in the same way, find the app on the Play Store, open it and allow a pop-up that asks you to add it to the app list. You can also find the option in the overflow menu on the top right.
Left to right: Show icon in app drawer for gboard, digital wellbeing, live transcribe and sound amplifier.
“Apps” from Google Apps
The Google App is home to many features that you can get with variable ease. Some, like an accessory, can be opened with a simple gesture, but others require a little tinkering. Provides “apps” on the Google Play Store to make things faster; Here they are:
In addition, the assistant has two hidden shortcuts that can make your life a lot easier if you use Google’s digital assistant more:
- Supporting settings: After installing the standalone assistant app above, tap and hold the app icon and you should get three in-app launcher launch shortcuts – Settings, explore, And My day. Tap and hold Settings Drag it to your homescreen one by one. This is the fastest way to get to support settings where you can change your language settings, manage your music services, set up payment methods and much more.
- Supporting snapshots: Snapshot with all your upcoming events, travel, delivery and more is a Google Now replacement of the assistant. But it’s not easy to get to: you have to open the assistant then tap the inbox-like icon at the bottom left (which many people probably ignore). The first time you do this, you’ll get a card at the top asking if you want to add a shortcut to your homescreen. Accept it and you will have a snapshot icon on your homescreen. It’s not as good as swiping right to see the feed, but it’s much faster than starting the first assistant. Be careful, if you disassemble the card, you’ll need to clear the Google Apps data to retrieve it. There is no other way to trigger it.
Left: Supporting settings shortcut. Middle: Supporting snapshot shortcut. OK: All 6 shortcuts:
Secret shortcuts from Google Apps
By staying in the Google app, you’ll notice that some searches usually trigger Google to offer a homescreen shortcut to quickly come into function at that time. One of the most well-known is probably the weather, but it still is.
Some sports inventions – specialized leagues or competitions – usually offer it, but there is no real poetry or reason behind them. Usually, a shortcut is offered for the first time, and if you reject it, you will never be asked again, as in the helpful snapshot example above. To get the query again, you’ll need to clear the Google Apps data and search again. But in some cases, you can find an easy and reliable way to get to that shortcut. I know, I know, it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what it is.
- Google Dictionary: When you try to find the definition of any word in Google App Search, you’ll get a Dictionary P-up at the bottom of the screen, asking you to add a dictionary shortcut. It will not reappear and there is no other way to trigger it.
- Word Coach: Below Google’s definition cards is always a second Word Coach A card to test your vocabulary knowledge. This is a fun way to learn English, and each card has a shortcut to add a Word Coach at the bottom of your homescreen – look for a small phone icon with diagonal arrows.
- Google Weather: Search the weather on Google for a weather card, then tap and select the overflow (three-dot) button in the upper right Add to home screen.
Left: Dictionary. Middle: Word Coach. OK: Weather.
This next set uses Chrome to eliminate the lack of proper shortcuts for these features in the Google Apps. I wish Google would offer them in the original way, or at least make them all progressive web applications.
- Google Travel: We may not be able to travel many times these days, but once we do, you can often check your upcoming travel plans. Travel in Chrome.Google.com and scroll to Trips To find the card marked as tab b Return to your trips at any time. This lets you add one Travel Icon on your homescreen. It’s as good as the standalone Google Trips app that was killed last year. You can also tap the settings (three-dots) button in Chrome at the top at that time Add to homescreen If you do not see the card.
- Reminders: If you don’t want to dig into the Google app or open your reminder to the assistant, you can open the assistant.google.com/reminders in Chrome and add a homescreen shortcut to that page.
- Google Collection: Google App Collections Can Be Super Handy. To quickly open them, open google.com/save in Chrome and add a shortcut to your homescreen for that page, as above.
Left: Travel. Middle: Collection. OK: Reminders.
Widget shortcuts
I understand if you haven’t looked at your phone’s widget picker in a while. Many of us don’t use it as much as we did a few years ago, or we add one or two that we like again. But some of these widgets are really simple shortcuts and are worth adding to your homescreen.
- Google Maps driving mode: This shortcut launches the built-in driving mode of the map, which is powered by Android Auto Toe or at least similar to the Auto Tone driving interface. If you are already rolled out the shortcut does not launch the new auxiliary driving mode, which may be a plus or not depending on how you feel about it. Some people don’t like the new UI, so a shortcut will allow them to get back to the old driving mode.
- Play history now: For pixel phones with the Now Playing feature, this shortcut lets you view the history of all valid songs, and open them in YouTube Music or Spotify.
- Google Sound Search: Although you can ask the assistant to identify the music around you, using Google’s Sound Search shortcut is quicker to start listening immediately.
Left: Google Maps Driving Mode. Middle: Play Now History. OK: Google Sound Search.
Another very simple “widget” that I personally use Settings shortcut Feature. When you try to add it to your homescreen, you are given many different settings sub-menus to choose from. Once added, it lets you jump to a specific section of settings directly from your homescreen. Here are my personal preferences:
- Notification log c: It lists your latest notifications so that by mistake you can find the one you just canceled. Just remember to toggle Notification history Already in settings so you can see this.
- Application information: I use it to quickly go to the application information screen of pre-installed and system applications, such as Play Services not the launcher icon.
- System: It’s a quick way to open developer settings or check for new updates.
Left and middleAdd settings shortcut to your homescreen:. OK: Hidden notification log c.
Google Assistant routines
A few days ago, the Google Home app added the option to create a homescreen shortcut for any of your assistive routines. To do that, you need to open your routines in the home app (or in the helper settings), select one, then look at the icon at the top that looks like a phone with diagonal arrows. You may now have a quick shortcut to trigger your morning, bedtime, or other preset or custom routine.
Add a homescreen shortcut to your home / assistive routines.
Create your own shortcut
Two tricks allow you to add homescreen shortcuts to the features inside any app you use. First, the app launcher has the ability to split shortcuts into their own icons, as I explained above through the auxiliary settings. You can get a homescreen shortcut for your apps section in the Play Store, your subscriptions in YouTube, a hidden tab in Chrome, a new event in Calendar, and more.
Left and middle: Dividing “My Apps” into its own shortcut. OKMore chercher application shortcuts:
The other one is a little more hidden. Each Android app has a set of activities that can be started directly from a third-party launcher. Nova supports it, but if you’re happy with your phone’s launcher, you can get an activity launcher from the Play Store and do a variety of activities to see if it does anything you’re interested in. :
- Files: Android 11 changed the default Files Or Downloads App on Android with Google’s Special Files app. The older files interface is still there and you can access it by finding the “com.android.documentsui.files.FilesActivity” activity and creating a shortcut for it.
- System UI tuner: Some of you may remember the system UI tuner that appeared in Android Marshmallow. This feature was “removed” with Android 9.0 Pi, but it can still be accessed via the “com.android.systemui / com.android.s systemmui.DemoMode” activity. It doesn’t do much these days, but that’s where you can disable some unnecessary icons from the status bar.
“Activity Launcher” lets you create shortcuts to any application’s hidden activities.
I like to use shortcuts to get things done quickly, be it a keyboard shortcut on my phone, custom search engines in Chrome, text extension apps and a shortcut icon on my phone. I do not use All There are examples above, but more than a dozen of them have become major bases on my homescreen and save me some precious time every day. If you’re enjoying any of the other shortcuts – and if you’ve come across those unicorn special shortcuts like Weather and Word Coach in the Google app, let me know. I would love nothing more than to add a few of these to my arsenal.
