Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro Tips and Tricks

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.

No one likes nuisance phone calls, so here’s how to deal with these on your phone.

The first option is to block all anonymous calls, although this may block some calls from people or companies that you do want to allow, so use this carefully.

To enable this, go to your Dial App press More in the top right.

Then choose Settings. Under Call settings, choose Call blocking and then Block list. Then select Block anonymous calls.

Secondly, if you’d like to block calls on a case-by-case basis, then follow these instructions:

First, wait until you’ve been called by a nusiance number. You can either answer and verify who they are, or when the phone is ringing, do a quick Google search for the number (ideally on a PC, otherwise you may need to switch between apps on your phone).

Often the number will come up on Page 1 of Google and be reported as a nusiance call number. You can often tell pretty quickly because the number will have many negative review.

Then once the phone has stopped ringing, go to your Dial App and then select Log to find the number on your recent call list.

Find the number that called you and press on it. Then in the top right, select More and select Block/unblock number.

To manage this list, then go back to the first screen of your Dial App and press More in the top right.

Then choose Settings. Under Call settings, choose Call blocking and then Block list. From here you can see which ones to block or unblock.

From now on you will see that you received a missed call, however the phone will not ring and you won’t be bothered by the caller.

To see which firmware version of Android you are using, use the pull-down menu by dragging your finger from the top of the phone.

Select Settings and under System, choose About Device.

This should list your Device name and model Number.

Select Software info to show more information such as your Android Version, Kernel Version, Build Number and other technical information.

First open your Contacts App and select a contact. Then press Edit at the top of the screen.

Then should then see a photo icon. Press that and you will then see some options to either take a photo or select a photo from your Gallery.

Select the icon depending on your requirements.

Sometimes you may get a notification from a particular App and you would like to change the settings of that App.

To do this, pull down your notifications screen. Then long press on the App you would like to see the settings for. Then select the gear icon. This will take you straight to the App settings.

Android now has privacy or incognito mode built into the stock browser.

Open your Browser App and press the Tabs icon at the bottom. Then press the Menu or More button at the top. Then select New secret tab, or Secret mode security.

Another option is to use the popular Dolphin browser whenever you want to browse privately. Then each time you exit, Dolphin asks you whether you want to delete your Cache or History.

If you select yes, then your activity will be untraceable. You may need to check this is enabled in the Dolphin settings.

To change the backlight screen timeout, drag down your notifications screen and press Settings.

Then select Display.

Then under Screen timeout you can set the screen time out duration.

You can also tell the phone screen to always stay lit when it is plugged in via USB:

Go to Settings – System – Developer Options. Then check Stay Awake.

Note: Developer Options is not always enabled by default. To enable, go to:

Settings – System – About Device – Software info . Then tap on Build number 7 times to enable this secret option.

To copy files between your phone and PC, go to the Android Play Market and search for one of the following top rates Apps:

Air Droid
Shareit
Xender
Superbeam

These are all useful Apps which allow you to connect your phone to your PC wirelessly, allowing you to move files and many other things.

Alternatively if you just want to copy using USB then simply plug the standard micro USB cable into your phone and it should appear as another drive on your PC.

To open a web page in a new tab, find a link on a web page. Then press on it and then choose to open the site in a new tab.

To add a widget, simply long press on a blank part of one of your home screens.

Then select Widget.

Scroll through the list of available widgets and choose one.

It will be placed on your home screen and you can move it around as you desire.