Samsung’s One UI software shell is packed with useful features that you may not have discovered yet. Recently we came across a few that we didn’t know existed. They are three very useful functions that we use every day and you can find them here.
Countdown to your vacation
There are many beautiful countdown apps in the Google Play Store like this gem. With these apps, you can countdown to an upcoming concert, birthday or wedding, a new season of Lupine, or your vacation. Then you can put the corresponding widget on your home screen and see how long it is until your vacation every day.
It is not necessary at all to download a countdown app on your Samsung phone because such a counter is already included as standard. You can put it on your home screen in the following way:
- Go to your phone’s home screen
- Tap where no app is placed, and hold your finger on the screen for 4 seconds 4
- At the bottom of the menu, tap Widgets
- Tap Samsung’s calendar app
- Choose Countdown
- Tap Add
- Then find the calendar event you want to count down to
- Customize the widget’s appearance if you want
- Drag the widget to where you want to place it on the home screen
- You can enlarge or reduce the widget if necessary
Share text and links
There are many apps where it is not possible to select a piece of text or a link and then share it with someone. Samsung has a handy solution for this and you can find it in the Smart Select window. So you use the Edge windows for this feature and if you haven’t activated it yet, you should definitely do that. You can easily access your favorite apps, tasks, contacts and much more through these windows. Turn on the Edge windows as follows:
- Open the Settings on your Samsung
- Go to Display and switching Edge windows in
- Tap Edge Windows, then Windows
- Check the window Slim select to
You can of course immediately select or download multiple windows from the Galaxy Store and also adjust the position of the handle. When you’re done, you can swipe the handle to open the windows easily.
Now open the app where you want to select a piece of text or a link and then swipe the handle spot to open the Edge windows.
- Open the Edge window
- Swipe until you get to the Smart Select window and tap Rectangle
- Drag the window to the text or link and tap Done
- Now tap on Text Extraction and Samsung will then show all the text in the rectangle
- Tap Copy or select part of it and then share it with someone via an app of your choice
Make your own GIFs
The Smart Select window contains other useful features including Animation. Follow the steps above to enable the Edge windows. Then choose a video in an app of your choice. That can be anything, a video on Instagram or a video that you received from your girlfriend via Telegram. Now you are going to turn that video into a nice gif and here’s how to do it.
- Open the Edge window
- Swipe until you get to the Smart Select window and tap Animation and the window will automatically select the video
- Select the desired recording quality and tap Recording
- Tap Stop when you’re done
- You can now edit the gif with text and then download it or share it immediately via an app of your choice.
