Android's System UI Tuner: What it is and how to use it

Credit: Michael Simon

One of the things that makes Android, well, Android is the incredible control we have over the interface. And it’s not just wallpapers and ringtones. With a little tinkering we can completely change the look of our phones, whether it’s through rooting, flashing a custom ROM, or installing a third-party launcher.

But if you’re a little skittish at the thought of voiding your warranty and possibly bricking your phone, you can still tweak Android with a few tricks via the System UI Tuner, a feature Google has built right into Settings. You just need to know how to find it.

Hide and seek

When the Marshmallow preview launched in 2015, it brought a menu of customization options in Settings called System UI Tuner. It was sort of a preview of features that Google was still working on; the menu could be found under the System heading. However, once the third preview came along, Google stopped making it something you could accidentally stumble upon and changed it to a hidden menu that needs to be activated through a very deliberate process. And it's still there, hidden away from casual users.

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Enabling the System UI Tuner is easy, but you need to know how to do it.

First, you need to pull down the notification shade. Then, tap and hold the gear icon in the top right of the screen for a few seconds (on newer phones you’ll feel a vibration upon activation). Once you let go, the tiny cog will roll away and you’ll be taken to the Settings app and a box will appear saying, “Congrats! System UI has been added to Settings.”

To get to the menu, scroll all the way to the bottom of the settings screen. In the second-to-last spot, you’ll see a new System UI Tuneroption, right above the About phone tab. Tap it and you’ll open up a set of options for tweaking the interface.

Different strokes

While System UI Tuner is guaranteed to work on Nexus and Pixel phones, your mileage may vary with other manufacturers. Most notably there is no way to activate the menu on the Galaxy S7.

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During beta testing, the System UI Tuner is filled with all sorts of goodies.

Also, as is the case with any beta or developer feature, there’s no guarantee that the toggles will work properly, as evidenced by the warning at the bottom of the window: “These experimental features may change, break, or disappear in future releases. Proceed with caution.” However, it’s one of the first things we do at Greenbot whenever we get a new phone, and we’ve never experienced any real problems with it.

Over its near-two-year existence, the System UI Tuner has contained a variety of options, some of which have been moved into the main settings and others that have disappeared. For example, during the Nougat beta testing, both a night mode and a dark theme could be enabled via the System UI Tuner, but only the night mode made it into the shipping version (as Night Light), while we’re still waiting for a dark theme to re-emerge.

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