Samsung Galaxy A8 Star Tips and Tricks

When taking photos or videos, tap the screen where you want to focus on. The phone will automatically adjust the settings to improve the image or video

A great new feature is dual shot which lets you take a picture of someone else with the rear camera, while simultaneously taking a picture of yourself with the front facing camera. The problem is this feature isn’t obvious to find as it isn’t included in the list of camera Modes.

To find it open your Camera App and you will see three icons in the top right corner. Dual shot is the middle icon of these. Press that and you both cameras will activate allowing you to shoot away.

This may not me available on all Models

To take a screen shot, hold down the Volume Down and Power Buttons together (i.e. exactly the same time).

This will save the current screen to your phone’s memory card. They will be stored in the folder /Device Storage/Pictures/Screenshots. You can get to this folder by going to your My Files App.

At the bottom of each homescreen is your favourites tray, which consists of 5 icons. You can customise it by adding icons to the tray. If it’s full however, you will first need to remove some.

To remove an icon, simply press and hold an icon. Then drag it to your desktop.

Then to add a new one, simply drag an icon from your homescreen to the favourites tray.?

If you want to clear your website browser history, cache or cookies on the Samsung Galaxy A8 Star 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 Samsung Galaxy A8 Star

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 Samsung Galaxy A8 Star

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.

Having notifications come through on the lock screen can be handy because you don’t have to unlock your phone to see what the notification is about.

The problem with this is that someone may see the content of a notification (a text message for example) which you would like to keep private.

To change this setting to only display that the notification has arrive (rather than the actual content), then go to Settings – Sounds and notifications.

Then under the Notifications section, select Notifications on lock screen.

Select Hide content to only show the notification and not the content itself.

You can also select to turn Lock screen notification ‘ON or OFF’ from this menu.

There are a couple of ways to add new home screens to your device.

The simplest is to go to one of your existing Homescreens and simply pinch the screen. This will show all of your Homescreens in thumbnail view. Then just press the Plus symbol to add another. You can also press and hold, then drag a Homescreen to a different position. Or press the little Home icon to make one of them your default Homescreen.

Another option is to download a Launcher App. These are third-party user interfaces that allow you to customize your phone in many ways. Most of them allow multiple homescreens. A very popular launcher which supports multiple homescreens is GoLauncher EX.

Simply go the Play Store and search for GoLauncher EX or another launcher.

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone (but not the MicroSD card).

To perform a hard reset, or factory reset, then there are a number of methods to try:

1) Go to Settings – Personal – Backup and reset – Factory data reset – Reset device. It may ask for a password. Then select Erase everything.

If the phone is totally unresponsive, even after a reboot, then try the following methods.

2) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons together. Then, while holding these, press and release the Power button (keep holding the volume buttons). The phone should turn on and a menu will appear. Press the Volume down button to navigate to the Recovery option. Press the Volume Up to select (if that doesn’t work, use the Power button to select). A yellow triangle and an Android logo will appear. Press the Volume Down and Volume Up button together and a recovery menu should appear. Use the Volume buttons to move to the Wipe data/Factory reset option and then press Power to select. Again, use the Volume Down key to choose Yes and press the Power button again to select.

3) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Down button. Then, while holding, press and release the Power button. A menu should appear. Use the Volume down key to go to Clear Storage. Use the Power button to select the option. Then when asked to confirm, press Volume Up for Yes.

4) While the phone is off, press and hold down Volume Up + Home + Power buttons at the same time. Then release the buttons when you see the Logo. Use the Volume Down button to go down and the Home or Power key to select. Choose the Wipe data/Factory reset option. Then Select Yes to delete all user data. Then choose to reboot the phone.

5) A final method is to enter the code into your phone’s dialler: *2767*3855# This method will not give you an option to reverse the process, so be careful! This method will only work if you can boot into your phone.

If you prefer a different voice when listening to the Google Maps voice navigation, you can select another language or accent.

To change this, go to Settings. Then select System – Language and input – Text-to-speech options. Then under the Preferred text-to-speech engine, press the gear icon.

From there, select Language and you will be able to choose from different languages or language variations.

There are a number of ways, as below. The first two of these may be disabled on some networks/carriers or Android versions however.

1) Go to Settings – Device – Applications – Application Manager. Then swipe from right to left until you are on the All screen (at the top). Then scroll down to Contacts Storage – Clear Data.

2) Go to Contacts. Then hold and press on a contact. Then choose the All option at the top of the screen and select Delete. .

3) Go to Settings – Personal – Accounts and sync. Then press More at the top and choose Disable auto sync. Then go to Gmail (or an account that your phone syncs with) and delete all of your Contacts from there. Then re-sync your phone.

4) Download an App called ‘Delete All Contacts’ and use that as a last resort.

The methods above will delete contacts from the Phone only, not the SIM card.