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iOS might be catching up in terms of customization, but if you want to take full pixel-by-pixel control over the look of the software on your phone, Android still leads the way. You're able to change up the look of your home screens in all kinds of ways—some of which you may not yet have discovered.
This is a full rundown of all the options available to you right now, in the latest versions of Android for Pixel phones (Android 15) and Samsung phones (One UI 6.1.1). If you're using a handset from a different Android manufacturer, you should find similar options available—though the menus and dialogs might differ.
Organize your apps
New apps will appear on your home screen by default, but you can turn this off. To manage this on Pixel phones, long press on a blank part of the home screen, then choose Home settings > Add app icons to home screen. On Samsung phones, open Settings and choose Home screen > Add new apps to Home screen.
On Pixels, you can add apps to the home screen by tapping and holding on them in the app drawer, then dragging them to a home screen—drag to the far right to create a new home screen. On Samsung phones, long press on an app in the app drawer, then choose Add to Home.
Tap, hold, and drag on any app shortcut on one of your home screens to move it somewhere else. To remove an app from a home screen without uninstalling it, click tap and drag it to the Remove button at the top (Pixel), or tap and hold on it and choose Remove (Samsung). To create home screen folders, drag apps on top of each other; drag them out again to take them back to the home screen.
Each home screen has a grid, but you don't need an app in every slot—you can leave gaps. You can tweak the size of the grid too, from Settings: On Pixels, head to Wallpaper and style > Home screen > App grid, and on Samsung Galaxy devices, select Home screen > Home screen grid.
Roll out the widgets
It's when you introduce widgets that you can really start to get creative with your home screen layouts. Widgets can be placed in multiple positions and often set to multiple sizes: The widgets you have available will depend on the apps you've got installed, and what the developers of those apps have made available.
On both Pixel and Samsung phones, press and hold on a blank part of the home screen, then tap Widgets to see what's on offer. Widgets are organized by app: To put one on a home screen, long press on it and drag it into position. In some cases, you'll need to configure the widget once it's placed (choosing the label you want to see in the Gmail widget, for example).
Tap and hold on a widget to drag it into a new position, or to resize it—handles appear around the edges if the widget is a resizable one. Widgets can be removed from home screens in the same way as apps: Tap and drag to Remove (Pixel phones) or tap and hold, then choose Remove (Samsung phones).
If you're using Samsung's One UI, you get an extra bonus widget feature: stacks. As the name suggests, these are widgets in the same spot that you can swipe between. To start a stack, tap and hold on a widget, then pick Create stack—if you already have several widgets on top of each other, the option changes to Edit stack.
Wallpapers and colors
Behind your apps and widgets you've got a wallpaper and a color theme. On Pixel phones, open Settings, then Wallpaper and style: From here you're able to pick backdrops for the lock screen and home screen (tap More wallpapers to get more options). Underneath, you can also choose a color scheme—you'll see some options that fit with your chosen wallpaper, but you can opt for whatever colors you like.
On the wallpaper screen there's a Themed icons option, which will attempt to give your home screen icons a shade that matches your pick of wallpaper and Android colors. It doesn't always work perfectly—it's labeled as still being in beta development—but it's something else you can try to change the look of the mobile operating system.
These screens look slightly different if you're using a Samsung Galaxy phone: It's Wallpaper and style again from the Settings menu, but you need to tap Change wallpapers to see more image options, and Color palette to make your pick of color schemes. As on Pixel phones, you can opt for colors that match your wallpaper, or go for something different.
Samsung phones have a whole extra Settings menu called Themes, where you can manage combinations of wallpapers, colors, and icons (much like a Windows desktop theme). You can get access to a whole host of third-party themes, most of which you'll have to pay for, which will apply wallpaper backdrops, icon graphics, and color schemes across your phone's interface.
More customization options
There are yet more customization options you can call upon if you've got an Android phone: For example, you can change the size of the display text and other elements on screen. From Settings, head to Display and touch > Display size and text (Pixel), or Display > Font size amd style (Samsung) to do this.
Making changes here will affect the text, widgets, and icons you see on your home screens. From these same display menus, you can also access your phone's dark mode, which gives all on-screen elements (including those on the home screen) a darker look—you can even schedule dark mode to turn on at particular times, if you want.
Then there are third-party launchers, which completely replace and re-skin your home screens, giving your phone a fresh new look. Smart Launcher and Nova Launcher are two of the oldest and most popular Android launchers in the business.
You can switch between home screen launchers pretty easily, too: On Pixel phones, open Settings then choose Apps > Default apps > Home app. if you're on a Samsung phone, from Settings it's Apps > Choose default apps > Home app. Each individual launcher will come with its own range of options too, which can be accessed from these same screens.
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