There is no denying that phones have gotten big, sometimes in a comical way. It can be nearly impossible to use a modern Android phone with one hand. That’s where “One Hand Mode” comes in, and many Android phones have it.
If you are not familiar with it » One hand mode «Is simply a function that slides the user interface to the bottom of the screen to make things easier to access. This is not a permanent thing, but it is useful in certain situations.
For this guide, we will show you how one-handed mode works on Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones.
One hand mode for Samsung Galaxy phones
Samsung was one of the first Android phone manufacturers to add one-handed mode. First, swipe down once from the top of the screen and tap the gear icon.
Scroll down to the bottom of Settings and select ‘Advanced Features’.
Select “One Hand Mode”.
Flip the switch at the top of the screen.
You can then choose how one-handed mode is activated. If you use gesture navigation, you can only choose “Gestures”. But if you use the three-button layout, you also have the option of double-tapping the home button.
In one-handed mode, you can touch the arrow icon to move the reduced screen left or right. You can also take the corner to change the screen size. Touch any empty screen space to exit.
One hand mode for Google Pixel phones
One-handed mode arrived for Google Pixel phones in Android 12 . To get started, swipe down twice from the top of the screen to display the Quick Settings menu, and then tap the gear icon.
Then scroll down and select ‘System’.
Now select “Gestures”.
Finally, go to “One-handed mode”.
Flip the switch at the top to activate one-handed mode.
You also get a couple of other options. Enable “Exit on application switch” to automatically exit one-handed mode when you exit an application.
Lastly, you can set the “Timeout” for the one-handed mode to exit after a certain period of inactivity.
With that out of the way, you can activate one-handed mode by swiping down on the home button or gesture bar. To exit one-handed mode, swipe up in the same place or tap the blank area at the top of the screen.
If you don’t have a Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel phone, there’s still a good chance that you have one-handed mode. Look for it in Settings and you will be amazed! This is a neat thing to know.