TechCredo.com | Android Tips & Tricks and Tutorials

Here is a collection of various Android tips, tricks and tweaks – a few of them are very common and some are less well-known. All of the tips and tutorials are tested on a HTC Hero, and although some may be device specific, they should work on most Android phones. I’ll update this post whenever I come across something new that fits the list, and I hope it eventually will grow into a quite respectable FAQ.

If you’re an experienced Android user, you might know much (if not all) of this already. But then you might have a tip or trick up your sleeve that is not listed here? Describe it in a comment and I’ll add it to the collection!

General Tips & Tricks
Browser Tips & Tricks
Long Press Tips & Tricks

How to Turn off HTC Sense
Adding Your Own Ringtones
How to Diversify Your Notifications
Hard-Resetting Your Android Device

How to Take Screen Shots
How to Clear or Edit the Custom Dictionary
Adding Shortcuts to the Notification Bar
Routing Unwanted Callers Straight to Voicemail

How to Prevent Apps From Starting Automatically
Android Keyboard Shortcuts

Android Video Tips From Google
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Tips that have been added since the collection first
was published are marked with an orange icon:

General Tips & Tricks

When the screen is off, you can double press the Menu button to bypass the Lock screen. Pressing the Menu button from the Lock screen will also wake the phone, if you don’t want to do the sweeping motion. This requires that the “Unlock pattern” option is disabled.
If your device is in silent mode, you can quickly turn the ringer on again by pressing the Volume up hardware button.
When using the on-screen keyboard, instead of hitting “.” then space for a new sentence, you can just double tap on the space bar and it will do a full stop, space, and then capitalize the next letter. This method is much quicker.
If you want to edit a text, like an SMS, and have a hard time getting to the correct spot by tapping on the screen, slide your finger in any direction over the trackball to get to the correct spot.
On the HTC Hero, you can also use the trackball to switch between your homescreens by swiping your finger across it.
In long lists, like your contacts or all the songs in your music collection, flick the screen to scroll down and then tap the gray scroll bar that appears to the right to quickly go to a certain letter in the list.
If you think it’s difficult to grab the just mentioned scroll bar, tap and hold it until the scroll bar unfolds, instead of catching it with a downward or upward motion. You can also simply touch it and drag the bar to the left.
Pressing the Menu button in All programs will let you switch from Grid mode to List mode.
To see the current date, just tap on the notification bar and it will be displayed in the upper-left corner of the screen.
Turning your device upside-down when you receive a call will mute the ringtone. Pressing the volume down button will have the same effect.
During a call, hold the hardware Call button to activate the speakers. You can also turn the speakerphone off and on during calls by pressing the Menu button.
The Search button on your device that looks like a little magnifying glass is very handy. It can be pressed almost anywhere to bring up a search function.
Hitting the Menu button on your device will almost always bring up a menu with options.

Browser Tips & Tricks

Holding down the Back button in the web browser will bring up a list of recently-visited pages.
Double tap in the browser to zoom, and on the HTC Hero you can also zoom by pinching the screen with two fingers (multi-touch). This will also work in the image gallery.
To copy text in the web browser, tap and hold and select Copy text from the resulting pop-up menu.
Long pressing on an image in the browser will allow you to save the image and share it via email and MMS.
You can click on addresses and phone numbers in the browser even though they aren’t links, and you’ll get the option to show the location in Google Maps or dial the number.

Long Press Tips & Tricks

You can long press (tap and hold) basically anywhere in Android to produce a pop-up menu with options, much like clicking the right mouse-button in Windows.
If you don’t want to press the trackball to take a picture when using the camera, you could simply tap and hold on the screen instead.
Holding down the Home button will list the six most recently launched applications, for convenient multi-tasking.
If your Android device has a trackball, in many cases pressing and holding it will have the same result as a long press on the screen.
Almost all Android users know how to create a folder on the homescreen (long press/Folder/New folder), but do you know how to rename it? Tap and hold on the title and you’ll be able to edit it.
On the HTC Hero (also known as the Droid Eris), tap and hold on the word suggestion bar when writing with the on-screen keyboard, and you’ll be able to change its position by dragging it around.
To forward a text message, press and hold it and select Forward from the menu.

How to Turn off HTC Sense

Sense is the latest incarnation of HTC’s popular TouchFLO 3D interface. The first phone to feature it was the HTC Hero, and later it also graced the Windows Mobile device HTC HD2. A fair questions is: why would you want to turn off one of the hottest interfaces around? Well, some people prefer the standard Android homescreen and have no use for all the fancy widgets and additional screens, or they want to save some RAM or simply enjoy being able to switch between the two. Here’s how you disable HTC Sense in favour of the Vanilla Android:

Press the Menu button and tap on Settings.
Scroll down and select the Applications category.
Press Manage applications. If you have a lot of apps installed, it will probably take a while for the list to load. Be patient.
Locate TouchFLO in the list and select it. This will bring up the Application info screen.
Tap on the Clear defaults button.
Now press the hardware Home button, and you should be asked how to complete the action. Select “Use by default for this action” at the bottom of the pop-up box, and then tap on Home.
That’s it! From now on, each time you press the Home button you’ll go to the standard Android homescreen.

If you want to go back to HTC Sense later on, follow the same steps as above but select Home in the list of applications instead of Touchflo.

Adding Your Own Ringtones

When I was new to Android, I wondered how I could get my own collection of ringtones and message sounds on my device. I have a set of signals I made by extracting the best parts of my favorite songs using Adobe Audition. The trick is to create three folders in the root of your memory card, called ringtones, alarms and notifications and place your notification sounds there. For further instructions, follow the steps below:

Connect your device to your computer using the USB-cable.
Slide down the notification bar (window shade) on your phone, tap on the USB connected icon and then press the Mount button.
This will allow you to access the memory card via your computer’s file manager. Open your memory card and create three folders in the root of the SD card titled ringtones, alarms and notifications.
Copy your various ringtones to the appropriate folders. You will now be able to choose from them when changing the sound settings on your phone.
If you want to get new sounds directly from your device, check out Ringdroid and Zedge.

How to Diversify Your Notifications

By default, the same notification sound is played for all incoming messages. This isn’t very practical, since you can’t tell by the sound what kind of message you got. The simple solution is to set a specific notification for each type of message:

Set the default notification sound from Settings > Sound & display > Notification sound.
Set the Gmail ringtone from Gmail > Menu > Settings > Select ringtone.
Set the sound for incoming text and multimedia messages from Messaging > Menu > Settings > Select sound.
Voilà! That’s it, you will now be able to hear what kind of message that just arrived to your phone.

Hard-Resetting Your Android Device

A hard-reset will restore your device to its original state, and all information you have added to the internal memory will be erased. The procedure is easy:

To hard-reset your phone, tap on the Menu button and enter Settings > Security > Factory data reset. Press the Reset phone button to complete the procedure.
On the HTC Hero, you can also perform a hard-reset by pressing hardware buttons. Turn the Hero off, and simultaneously press and hold the Home and Back buttons, then briefly press the End call/Power on button. The reset process will start after a couple of seconds.

How to Take Screen Shots

It seems strange to me, but there is currently no quick and easy way to take screen shots on non-rooted Android devices. If you have root access, however, you can simply use an app and follow these steps. Otherwise you have to do it in a roundabout way and take use of the Android SDK:

First you have to enable USB debugging on your Android phone from Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging.
Now you need to download and install the Android SDK on your computer from http://developer.android.com/sdk/. Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the package, run SDK Setup.exe and click on Available Packages to the left. If you get an error message at this point, enable “Force https://…” in the Settings. From the list of available packages, select “Usb Driver package”, click on the Install Selected button in the bottom right corner and follow the prompts.
Connect your phone to your computer with your USB-cable. Your OS will prompt you to install new drivers. Choose to install them from the android-sdk/usb_driver folder. Do not mount your device, you just need to plug-in the cable.
Run ddms.bat from the android-sdk/tools folder and select your phone from the list to the left. It should look something like this.
From now on, taking screen shots is easy. Just press Ctrl+S (or select Screen capture from the Device menu) and click the Save button at the top.

How to Clear or Edit the Custom Dictionary

I guess we’ve all at one time or another made the mistake of adding unwanted words to the custom dictionary on our phones. It can prove annoying, since you sometimes get the accidentally added word instead of the one you actually want. Ideally, there would be a way to edit, export and import custom dictionaries, like Symbian users now have the privilege to do. Until Android gets such a feature, however, you will have to settle with simply clearing the entire dictionary. Here’s how:

Press the Menu button and go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications.
Locate Touch Input in the list of programs and tap on it.
Press the Clear data button to erase the custom dictionary.

Those sporting a HTC Magic (in the UK, at least) is supposedly able to edit the dictionary from Settings > Locale & text > User dictionary.

Adding Shortcuts to the Notification Bar (Window Shade)

Adding links to the Android notification bar will give you quick access to the applications you use the most, without having to go to the homescreen.

To do this, simply download the application Bar Control from the Android Market. There may be other choices out there, but this application is likely the best one available at the moment.
Here is a QR code for Bar Control that you can scan with the Barcode scanner app and it will take you directly to the Android Market.

Routing Unwanted Callers Straight to Voicemail

You can send unwanted callers directly to your voicemail by following these simple steps:

Open the person’s profile in your standard Contacts list.
Press the Menu button, tap Options and check the Incoming calls box. That’s it!

For the HTC Hero, and probably other devices featuring the Sense UI, the procedure is slightly different:

Start the People application.
Tap on the contact you want to automatically send to voicemail.
Press the Menu button and select Edit.
Scroll down to the bottom of the list of options and check the Send calls directly to voicemail box.

How to Prevent Apps From Starting Automatically

I was surprised when I realized that so many applications on my HTC Hero automatically start processes without me knowing it. Apps that I hardly ever used (and some programs that I hadn’t even tried yet) was constantly hogging around 50MB of precious RAM, and putting a needless strain on my battery. However, a program called Autostarts can come to the rescue:

To control which apps are allowed to start automatically, download Autostarts from the Market. It will let you know what goes on behind your back on your Android phone. Here is a QR code for Autostarts that will take you to the Market.
Autostarts only cost $1, but since it’s a paid app, it will unfortunately only be available in a limited number of countries as of now.
If anyone know of a free alternative, please leave a comment.

Android Keyboard Shortcuts

If your Android handset has a hardware QWERTY, you can use keyboard shortcuts for various actions. Some shortcuts may vary from one Android device to another, but most of these key combinations should work on any Android phone. You can create your own keyboard shortcuts from Settings > Applications > Quick launch.

Browser Shortcuts	Text Input Shortcuts	Application Shortcuts
Gmail Shortcuts	Google Maps Shortcuts	Scrolling Shortcuts

Browser Shortcuts

Zoom in	Menu + I
Zoom out	Menu + O
Find on page	Menu + F
View browsing history	Menu + H
Open bookmarks	Menu + B
Open browser settings	Menu + S
Go back a page	Menu + J
Go forward a page	Menu + K
Reload current page	Menu + R
Open Windows menu	Menu + W
Go to home page	Menu + Enter
Page down	Spacebar
Page up	Shift + Spacebar

Text Input Shortcuts

Copy text	Menu + C
Paste text	Menu + V
Undo	Menu + Z
Delete character to the left	Del
Delete character to the right	Shift + Del
Delete an entire line	Alt + Del
Activate Caps Lock	Shift + Shift (double press). Press once more to turn it off.
Move cursor to beginning of line	Alt + Trackball Left
Move cursor to end of line	Alt + Trackball Right
Move cursor to top of page	Alt + Trackball Up
Move cursor to bottom of page	Alt + Trackball Down
Highlight text for copying or cutting	Shift + Trackball Left/Right/Up/Down
Select all text in the current field	Menu + A

Application Shortcuts

Open Google Maps	Search + M
Open Text Messaging	Search + S
Open Gmail	Search + G
Open Email	Search + E
Open Contacts	Search + C
Open Browser	Search + B
Open Calendar	Search + I
Open Music	Search + P
Open YouTube	Search + Y

You can customize these shortcuts and add your own from Settings > Applications > Quick launch.

Gmail Shortcuts

Reply (works only when the message is opened)	R
Forward (works only when the message is opened)	F
Reply-all (works only when the message is opened)	A
Archive message	Y
Compose new email	Menu + C
Refresh Inbox	Menu + U
Open email (from the main Inbox)	Enter
Jump to top of Inbox	Alt + Trackball Up
Jump to bottom of Inbox	Alt + Trackball Down

Google Maps Shortcuts

Select map mode	Menu + M
Directions	Menu + D
My Location	Menu + 0
Settings	Menu + P
History	Menu + H
Zoom in	Menu + I
Zoom out	Menu + O

Scrolling Shortcuts

Page down	Spacebar
Page up	Shift + Spacebar
Jump to end of list	Alt + Trackball Down
Jump to top of list	Alt + Trackball Up

Android Video Tips From Google

Android Tips & Tricks and Tutorials

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