Samsung Galaxy S4 Tips and Tricks

Android 4.2 (Jellybean)
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S4
Factory OS: Android 4.2 (Jellybean)

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
Or view tips for all Android versions

If you have forgotten your custom unlock pattern, then don’t panic.

After 5 unsuccessful tries a button should appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password.

The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you might have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

If you have been browsing websites that you would prefer other people to not know about, then it’s relatively simply to clear your browsing history.

Open the browser and press the Menu button. Then Settings – Privacy – Delete personal data.

From here you can select whether to clear the cache, cookies, passwords and more.

To copy files between your phone and PC, go to the Android Play Market and download an app called Air Droid.

This is an extremely useful App that connects your phone to your PC wirelessly, allowing you to move files and many, many other things.

While typing emails or notes, you can simply tap the space key twice and the phone will insert a full stop / period

The standard Android keyboard is good, but not great. There are many third party keyboards available which will improve your typing speed and accuracy.

Go to the Android Market and search for ‘Keyboard’ to see some great alternatives, many of which are more accurate and make typing much easier.
A good one is GoKeyboard.

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.

To delete or remove homescreen widgets, simply press and hold. Then drag the widget to the top-right corner of the screen and into the Trash icon.

In Contacts press Menu – Settings – Sort list by. Then choose Given name or Family name.

With the latest version of Android you can now take photos while recording video by simply pressing the screen.

This will save that particular frame to the gallery while continuing to record video.

To enable Face Unlock, go into Settings – Lock screen – Screen lock.

Then select Face unlock. From here you will be required to look at the phone via the front facing camera. It is usually better to do this during the day when the lighting is better, although the phone will guide you through the process.

To change your default font, go to Settings – Display – Font style. You can also change the font size here also.

Another option is to install the popular Go Launcher EX App. Then once this is installed, download their GoLauncher Fonts App.