status icon

Master Galaxy S20 Home screen

Galaxy S20 Hone screen is the centre of Galaxy S20. There is no way to skip it.

This Galaxy S20 guide explains the role of Galaxy S20 Home screen, 11 items and their meaning and usage on Galaxy S20 Home screen, and supported gestures on the Home screen.

Please note, although Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 ultra differ significantly, the Home screen is identical for all these 3 phones. So, in the guide, Galaxy S20 refers to these three phones.

The role of Galaxy S20 Home screen

After unblocking Galaxy S20 lock screen, the first screen you will use is the Home screen.

Of course, if you unlock Galaxy S20 with face recognition, you have the option to stay on the unlocked lock screen or directly navigate to Home screen, as explained in this guide.

Galaxy S20 Home screen is the centre of the phone. Most of the functions and apps are accessed from the Home screen.

On Galaxy S20 Home screen, you can:

Access all apps (with or without Apps screen).
Create, manage and use app folders.
Access widgets.
Access phone settings and customization.
Check notifications
Check system status.
Access quick settings panel.

Anyway, the home screen is so important that you cannot avoid it!

Understanding items on Galaxy S20 Home screen

Generally, there are about 11 types of items on the Galaxy S20 Home screen, as shown in the screenshot below:

Status bar
App icons
App folders
App Shortcuts/bookmarks
Pinned files
Widgets.
Picture frame.
Panel indicator.
Favourite tray.
Navigation bar.
Edge panel handle.

We will explain them one by one.

Status bar

The status bar is an integrated part of the Android UI. It is

It will always be shown when in the Home screen or using any apps except in the full-screen immersive mode. In the immersive mode, you can swipe the screen to call out the status bar.

On the left side of the status bar, you can find the current time and a few notification icons, whose style can be customized as explained in this guide.

On Galaxy S20, the status icons are on the right side of the status bar and aligned to the right edge. You can find the meaning of most Galaxy S20 status icons and notification icons on this page.

When using some apps, for example, the Galaxy S20 camera app, the … Read the rest

Meaning of status icons and notification icons on Galaxy S20

By simon Leave a Comment

Understanding the meaning of status icons and notification icons on Galaxy S20 can help you get quick information about the phone status, system health, and notifications.

This Galaxy S20 guide first covers the differences between status icons and notification icons on Galaxy S20, then explains the meaning of Galaxy S20 status icons and notification icons in Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra.

Because Samsung uses slightly different icons in different regions or for some carriers, you may get the notification icons or status icons that are different from shown in this guide. It is normal. If you cannot figure out the meaning of those icons, you may share the screenshot on our FaceBook page so that others can help you identify them.

What is the difference between status icons and notification icons on Galaxy S20?

All Android phones including Galaxy S20 use the top part of the screen as the status bar to display some icons indicating the system status, alerting you possible issues and notifying you about incoming notifications.

Traditionally, a status icon refers to the icons telling you the phone status (e.g., mobile network status, WiFi status, battery percentage, or battery charging status), They are typically displayed on the right side of the status bar and aligned to the right side of the screen.

The status icons on the Galaxy S20 are always shown on the left side of the status bar, as shown below. These notification icons include notifications from all apps(system apps and normal apps).

Since Android 9, Google has moved the time to the left side of the status bar. The notch or hole-punch for the front camera usually are located in the status bar. So, the space for notification icons becomes very limited.

To avoid the overcrowded notification icons, Galaxy S20 allows you to customize how the notifications are shown (all notification icons, the 3 most recent icons, or just the number of notification icons) as explained in this guide.

The differences between status icons and notification icons on Galaxy S20 include:

Status icons are always related to the system; while notification icons are usually linked to specific apps (including a few system apps and third-party apps).
Status icons are shown on the right side of the status bar; while Galaxy notification icons always appear on the left side of the status bar.
Status icons are more or less universal

… Read the rest

How to customize notification icon style in Galaxy S20 status bar?

By simon Leave a Comment

Galaxy S20 allows you to customize notification icon style in the status bar to avoid overcrowded icons.

You can choose to show all notification icons, last 3 icons, or the total number of notification icons in Galaxy S20 status bar.

This Galaxy S20 guide explains the details of Galaxy S20 status bar, the icon arrangements, and how to customize notification icon style in Galaxy S20 status bar to hide notification icons, show 3 recent icons, show all notification icons, or only show the number of notifications in the status bar.

Please note, the status bar and notification icons work identically on Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra, although there are significant differences among these 3 phones.

What is Galaxy S20 status bar?

Like all other Android phones (even iPhones), the top part of the Galaxy S20 screen is reserved for the system to show status icons and notification icons.

As shown in the screenshot below., a typical Galaxy S20 status bar has two parts separated by the punching hole of the front-facing camera:

Notification icons (and time, which cannot be disabled) aligned to the left edge on the left side of the front camera.
Status icons aligned to the right edge on the right side of the front camera.

Since Galaxy S8, Samsung allows you to limit the total number of notification icons on the status bar. Galaxy S20 allows more options to customize notification style on the status bar.

Actually, all Galaxy phones with the Android 10 update has a similar feature.

What is the dot in the Galaxy S20 status bar?

You may notice the dot icon, as shown in the screenshot above (marked in the green circle), on the rightmost of the status bar.

The dot icon in the Galaxy S20 status bar means “and more”. In other words, the dot icon tells you there are more than 3 notifications icons.

By default, Galaxy S20 status bar only displays up to 3 notification icons. If there are more than 3, the most recent 3 notification icons will be shown and the dot icon starts to appear.

Of course, you can change this default behaviour to customize notification icon style on Galaxy S20 status bar (read on).

Anyway, do not be panic when you see the dot icon on the status bar.

You may check this guide to understand the meaning of the status … Read the rest