How to Customize Home Screen on Samsung Galaxy Phones (One UI 5)

Detailed Guide: Samsung Home Screen Customization!

If you’ve upgraded your Samsung Galaxy to One UI 5, you now have more options than ever to customize your home screen. And the customization options will grow even further with upcoming updates.

In One UI 5, Samsung has finally given some priority to customization along with other improvements. Well, there was always good lock customization, but having the option by default is better than installing additional apps.

The customization tools are now available not only for the home screen but also for the lock screen. Recently, we published a detailed guide on lock screen customization, make sure to check it out by navigating to this page. And now it’s time for a home screen customization guide.

Here you will find how to customize home screen on Samsung phones with stock features as well as other additional services.

Apply a Good Wallpaper on your Galaxy Smartphone

The basic and first thing that comes under customization is the wallpaper. For good customization or setup, you will need a good wallpaper. It’s like building a good foundation. The wallpaper you choose can set the tone for your entire device, and can greatly impact your overall user experience.

You can use any type of wallpaper which is good. Where can you get wallpaper? You can explore our YMWC series posts for amazing wallpapers that we share on the first weekend of every month or you can also try wallpapers from different sources.

How to Apply Wallpaper on Samsung Galaxy Phones

  1. Move the wallpaper to your phone storage, if it’s on a different device.
  2. Open the downloaded wallpaper either from Gallery or Files.
  3. Once you open the photo, tap on the three dots at the bottom right corner.
  4. Now from the stack menu, select Set as Wallpaper.
    How to Customize Homescreen on Samsung Phones
  5. Now here you can choose to set the Wallpaper on your Home screen only or both Home screen and Lock screen.
    How to Customize Homescreen on Samsung Phones
  6. Once done go back to home screen and you will find the new wallpaper.

Tip: If there is a punch hole on your phone, you can use some creative wallpapers that make the punch hole look like a part of the wallpaper.

You have completed the first step, so let’s move to the second step.

Change Home screen settings

Just like any other Android phone, Samsung phones also come with home screen settings where users can change the grid size, app icon size, layout, and more. So let’s see how to choose the best home screen settings.

How to Customize Home screen on Samsung Phones

Long press on your home screen until you see different options. Choose Settings to open home screen settings. Now here you will find different options that have some effect on home screen. So you need to understand each option and change their values according to your preference.

How to Customize Homescreen on Samsung Phones

Home screen layout: The first option is the layout. Here you can choose to enable or disable App Drawer. When the App drawer is enabled or the ‘Home and Apps screen’ is selected, the home screen will only show the app icons that you want to show. And all the apps will be in App Drawer. The other option ‘Home screen only’ disables the app drawer and all apps will be shown in different home screen tabs. I like to use App Drawer instead of using too many Home screen pages.

Home screen grid: This gives you control to change the rows and columns count on the home screen. It means if you choose a 4×5 grid, it will show four app icons horizontally and 5 app icons vertically. I use the maximum available option for more space and small icons.

Apps screen grid: This is for the App drawer page. The concept mentioned above also applies for Apps screen page. But it will not affect the home screen layout.

Folder grid: You can choose the size of folders you want to create in the home screen.

Other Recommended options:

  • Add media page to Home screen – On (Google Discover)
  • Show Apps screen button on the Home screen – Off
  • Lock Home screen layout – On/Off based on your need
  • Add new apps to the Home screen – Off
  • App icon badges – Off
  • Swipe down for the notification panel – On
  • Rotate to landscape mode – Off

Customize App Icons

App icons play an important role in the home screen interface when you want to keep some apps in it. Unfortunately, Samsung phones only come with one default app icon set. But you can use Theme Store, GoodLock, and even third-party apps to change app icons. For this customization, I would recommend an icon pack that supports your Material You Theme. Here I am using the default stock icon which is applied by default on every Samsung phone.

How to Customize Home screen on Samsung Phones

Now the real magic is to set the best dynamic palette to make the App icons color that matches your Wallpaper color. Here’s how to do it.

  1. Long tap on the home screen to bring home screen options.
  2. Open Wallpaper and style.
    How to Customize Home screen on Samsung Phones
  3. Go to the Color Palette option.
    How to Customize Home screen on Samsung Phones
  4. Now choose the best color palette that you think will look great. You can try them all one by one to test.
  5. Make sure to select ‘Apply palette to app icons’. This will apply the color palette changes to App Icons as well.
    How to Customize Home screen on Samsung Phones

Add Widgets to Home screen

As we have seen in iOS, using Widgets can change the appearance of the home screen. You can even customize your home screen just by using Widgets. Samsung has added a bunch of new widgets and even improved many widgets. One of my favorite widgets is the battery widget and the best widget feature is widget stacking which allows adding more than one widget in the same spot. Here’s how to add widgets.

  1. Press and hold in an empty space on the home screen.
  2. It will show some options, select Widgets.
    How to Customize Home screen on Samsung Phones
  3. This will bring a list of apps that come with widgets. You can tap on any app to see the set of available widgets.
  4. Tap on the app of which you want to use widget. Now tap on the Widget > Add.
    How to Customize Homescreen on Samsung Phones
  5. Choose the place for the Widget on your home screen.

Following a similar process you can add a few more Widgets. The key here is to use less number of widgets so that the home screen doesn’t feel like a cluttered one. So use about two to three widgets only. You can use Widget stacking if you want to use more widgets.

Tip: To customize widgets, tap on it and from various options select Settings to open options for that particular widget.

Rearrange App Icons and Widgets

If your home screen has only Widgets and no app icons, you can add App icons too on the home screen. All you have to drag the app icon to the bottom and then place it on home screen. You can use less number of app icons for a minimal look or fill all the gaps with App icons for a dynamic look.

Tip: Place App Icons on homescreen that support the dynamic theme. This will improve the overall appearance of your device’s homescreen.

The key to making the home screen look better is by using Widgets and App icons in the right place. Yes using both at the same time works great if their placement is done right. You can play with different locations, different widgets, different color palette, and different widget sizes.

How to customize Samsung homescreen

Use Good Lock for Customization

Good Lock is a treat for Samsung users who like to customize their entire phone not only the home screen. This is an official app from Samsung but it doesn’t come pre-installed on Samsung phones. You can install the Good Lock app from Galaxy App Store.

How to Customize Homescreen on Samsung Phones

After installing the Good Lock App, open the app. Here you can download any module that you want.

For home screen modification, you can install HomeUp and Theme Park. After installing any module, you can access them directly from the Good Lock homepage. Since this is a stock guide we will not go through each step. But don’t worry a detailed guide on Good Lock is on its way.

So this is how you can customize your Samsung phone with stock features. Yes, there are other options like using third-party launchers, app icons, widget makers, Good Lock, and more. But this is a basic guide for those who don’t want to give much time to the home screen customization.

In case we missed any useful steps, do let us know in the comment section. Enjoy customization on your Galaxy phone.

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AUTHOR.

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Ashutosh singh

Computer Science graduate and tech enthusiast. Love testing new tech gadgets ever since my first windows phone from Samsung. Working as a technical writer for more than five years, and I believe I have also developed good SEO skills. In my spare time, I like watching movies, and playing games.

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