Android 10 Tips and Tricks

While in the Camera App, there are two ways to zoom in or out.

First, you can use Volume Up and Down keys.

Secondly, you can pinch your fingers on the screen to zoom in and out.

Android cleverly uses Picasa to sync photos between your account and your phone. Sometimes however, this means that you will get duplicates appearing in your Gallery when they’re not actually on your phone.

To stop this from happening, and so you only see photos on the Phone or SD card, then follow these steps:

Drag down your notification menu from the top and click on the Gear icon to bring up your Settings. Then select Accounts and Google. Then select your Gmail account.

You should see a list of options that are ticked. Scroll down to the one that refers to Picasa and untick that.

Now that’s done we want to remove the thumbnails from your Gallery, so we need to refresh the Gallery. To do that, swipe down and go to Settings again. Then select More – Application Manager. Swipe across to show ALL Apps. Then find the Gallery App and press Clear Data.

This will erase the thumbnails in your Gallery, so don’t panic that your photos have disappeared. Just wait for the Gallery to re-build its index which could take awhile.

But the good news is that your Picasa Albums shouldn’t be there anymore.

Sometimes you will want to prevent your device fro, displaying or indexing folders on your Phone storage or USB storage.

To do this, simply rename the folder and place a . (full top / period) before the file or folder name.

This can be done through the Files App or by plugging your device in to your computer and renaming it there.?

A useful feature of Android Pie is what’s called Screen Pinning. This allows you to lock your phone to one App. Perfect if you have a young child that you don’t want messing with your phone. Or if you want to lend your phone to someone to make a call, but make the call only.

To enable this go to Settings – Security & location – Screen pinning. Then go to the App you want to Pin and press the Multitask key. Then look at the most recent and tap on app icon -pop appears then select Pin.

To un-pin an App just press the Multitask key and the back key together.

Android now has a way to display your name, phone or email on your lock screen. Perfect if you have lost or misplaced your device.

To enable this go to Settings – Security & Location

Then tap on gear icon under Screen Lock- Lock Screen Message.

Here you can enter any information you want, such as your name or email address.

If you want to clear your website browser history, cache or cookies on the Operating System Android 10 because you don’t want other people to snoop around (or you just want to clean up your list), then that is actually very easy to do. Just follow these steps:

  1. First, open the browser you use and look for the Menu or “More” button/icon.
  2. Then go to History → Clear Browsing Data.
  3. At the top, you will see that you can choose to delete data from a week or several months ago. You may also choose to delete everything by tapping “All Time.”
  4. You will see a list of data that you can tap to clear. You can clear cache, cookies, passwords, browser history and more.
  5. Be aware that if you delete cookies you will have to login to your online accounts again.
  6. Then, select browser history, then tap “Clear Data.”

This method generally works if you use Chrome on your phone. If you have multiple devices that use your Google Chrome account, you might notice that your browser history, cache and cookies are also reflected on other devices. These may get deleted too if you delete them from your phone.

If you don’t want this to happen, you can turn off sync on your device. This means that the browser history, cache, cookies, and other private data will just be removed from your phone alone.

To turn off sync on your Chrome, just follow these steps:

  1. Make sure you have already logged in your Google Account on Chrome.
  2. On Chrome, click on your Profile / Account icon (located at the top right portion).
  3. Look for Sync is On → Turn Off
  4. After this, you can delete your browser history, cache, and cookies on your phone without removing it on your other devices.

For Samsung phone users who are using the default Samsung Internet browser, you can clear your browser history, cache and cookies in a similar way to that of Chrome users. Just follow these steps:

  1. Open the Samsung Internet browser.
  2. Tap on the Menu icon.
  3. Go to Settings → Privacy and Security
  4. Scroll down to Personal Data then tap “Delete Browsing Data.”
  5. A list will open up and you can tap to delete other data such as cache, cookies, passwords, location data, among others.
  6. Select “Browsing History” then tap “Delete.”

If you are using a different browser, the steps are almost the same. The key is to look for your browser’s settings and look for the “Privacy” or “Data” section.

How to clear the cache on your Operating System Android 10

To clear your phone’s cache, the steps are similar with that of clearing your browser history. All you have to do is click on your browser and open its Menu. For Google Chrome users, just follow these steps:

  1. Open Chrome and go to Menu or tap on the More (three-dotted) icon.
  2. Then go to History → Clear Browsing Data.
  3. At the top, you will see that you can choose to delete data from a week or months ago. You may also choose to delete everything by tapping “All Time.”
  4. You will see a list of data that you can tap to clear. You can clear cache, cookies, passwords, browser history and more.
  5. Just select Cache, then tap “Clear Data.”

For those who are using the default browser on Samsung phones, the steps are also similar with that of clearing your browser history:

  1. Open the Samsung Internet browser.
  2. Tap on the Menu icon.
  3. Go to Settings → Privacy and Security
  4. Scroll down to Personal Data then tap “Delete Browsing Data.”
  5. A list will open up and you can tap to delete other data such as cache, cookies, passwords, location data, among others.
  6. Select “Cache” then tap “Delete.”

If you are using a different type of browser, the steps are still quite similar. What you really have to look for is the Privacy, Data, or Security settings of your browser. Just open your browser and look for its Settings or “More” option.

How to Clear Cookies on the Operating System Android 10

Clearing cookies from your phone is done similarly with clearing your browser history and cache. For Google Chrome users, just use these steps:

  1. Open Chrome and go to Menu or tap on the More (three-dotted) icon.
  2. Then go to History → Clear Browsing Data.
  3. At the top, you will see that you can choose to delete data from a week or months ago. You may also choose to delete everything by tapping “All Time.”
  4. You will see a list of data that you can tap to clear. You can clear cache, cookies, passwords, browser history and more.
  5. Just select Cookies, then tap “Clear Data.”

For those who are using the default Samsung browser, you can follow these steps:

  1. Open the Samsung Internet browser.
  2. Tap on the Menu icon.
  3. Go to Settings → Privacy and Security
  4. Scroll down to Personal Data then tap “Delete Browsing Data.”
  5. A list will open up and you can tap to delete other data such as cache, cookies, passwords, location data, among others.
  6. Select “Cookies” then tap “Delete.”

For those who are using other types of mobile browsers, the steps would be similar. Just look for the Menu then look for your browser’s Privacy, Data, or Security options.

If you would prefer to correct your own mistakes, then go to Settings – System – Language and input.

Then select the keyboard you are using and press the Settings icon again.

You should be able to find a predictive text option on this screen.

While the stock standard keyboard is fine, there are much better keyboards available for the Operating System Android 10.

First, you need to go to the Play Store and download one. Try searching for the word ‘keyboard’ and you will see a number of options.

One of the best keyboards is a keyboard called Swiftkey, which is a top-rated App. This will literally change the way you feel about your phone as the standard keyboard can be quite a frustrating experience.

Download your chosen keyboard and go through any install steps that you are presented with.

If you see a warning saying the keyboard will collect all information (including credit cards) just ignore this. This is just a security feature that Android shows for every third-party keyboard that you install.

Then, go to the App you want to type in. You should now see a little Keyboard icon on the row at the bottom of your screen, towards the bottom-right corner. Press that icon and you can switch between all of the keyboards you have installed.

Some other notable keyboards that work on the Operating System Android 10 are GO Keyboard and Gboard (the Google Keyboard). Download and install your keyboard app of choice. Once that’s done, follow these steps to switch your current keyboard to that newly installed one:

  1. You can click on your newly installed keyboard app (icon).
  2. Most of them can assist you on how to switch your keyboard.
  3. Just follow the instructions from the new keyboard app.

How to Switch Your Phone’s Default Keyboard to A New One

You can follow the steps above because most keyboard apps can assist you when it comes to switching the default keyboard to theirs. However, you can also do it manually by going to your Phone Settings. Just follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings and scroll down or look for the “System” sub-menu.
  2. Under “System,” tap “Language and Keyboard” or “Language and Input.”
  3. Tap “Default Keyboard” and select the new keyboard app.

Depending on your unit and model, this method could vary. For those who can’t find the “Default Keyboard” option, you can follow these steps:

  1. Under “Language and Input,” you need to look for Virtual Keyboards → Manage Keyboards.
  2. Tap your keyboard of choice to activate it.
  3. You will get a message of confirmation. Just tap “OK.”
  4. Open your keyboard. You can do this by trying to write a message, email or search.
  5. Then tap the keyboard icon.
  6. Choose the Input Method (tap on your preferred keyboard).

Done! You can change your Operating System Android 10 keyboard’s theme, predictive text, and other settings by opening its menu. You can do this by locating the keyboard icon on your home screen, or by tapping on the settings icon when you open the keyboard for typing.

To lock your screen while you are watching videos, simply press the power button.

This will disable the touchscreen buttons while the video is playing, but it won’t turn the screen off like the lock key normally does.

Note, this will only work on video files that you are playing that are stored on your phone. It won’t work for videos played within websites, such as YouTube videos.?

By default, your phone will recognise swear words, but insert x’s instead of the word. To change this, go to Settings – System – Language and input – Virtual Keyboard- Google Voice Typing

Then you may need to select your voice input system. Then toggle the Block offensive words option.