Samsung and Pixel owners can hide status bar icons like Bluetooth and alarms for free, and a few minutes of setup makes the top of the screen look calmer.
The row of tiny icons at the top of an Android phone can be trimmed. How-To Geek writer Joe Fedewa shows how to hide icons such as Bluetooth and alarms. Samsung Galaxy owners have an easy, official route. Pixel owners have two third-party options, one simple and one more advanced.
The status bar is the strip at the top of the screen that shows the clock, battery and other small symbols. Fedewa says it has barely changed since the early days of Android. Some phones now hide a few icons on their own. Pixel phones no longer show the NFC icon, and Samsung hides some icons in the notification panel. Still, he finds a few useless, such as Bluetooth, which he leaves on all the time, and the alarm icon.
Samsung offers a free app called Good Lock. It is a collection of plugins that add extra features and tweaks. One plugin, QuickStar, customizes the Quick Settings panel and the status bar. It can hide nearly any status bar icon with a simple toggle switch.
Some icons, including Bluetooth, NFC and alarms, only show when the notification or Quick Settings panel is pulled down.
Google has no Good Lock equivalent for Pixel, but there are two workarounds. The first is System UI Tuner, an app that is a shortcut to a hidden Android tool of the same name. That tool first arrived in Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Android 9 Pie removed the Developer Options route to it, but it is still built into Android, which is why the shortcut works.
Install it from the Play Store, open it and choose "Status bar." A list of icons appears. Some come with extra options, such as showing battery percentage only while charging.
The second option is Essentials, which Fedewa calls the closest thing Pixel owners have to Good Lock. It must be sideloaded, meaning installed from outside the Play Store, from GitHub or the official website. Because it is not an official app, it needs advanced permissions to change system settings. The app explains the setup, and Fedewa suggests an app called ShizuWall for the ADB commands.
In Essentials, go to Display, then Statusbar icons, and switch it on. It offers more choices than System UI Tuner. One example is a "Smart WiFi" toggle that hides the mobile data bars when you are on Wi-Fi.
Galaxy owners should start with Good Lock. Pixel owners who want the quick fix can try System UI Tuner. Essentials suits people comfortable with extra permissions. Fedewa adds that notifications are the other half of a cluttered screen, and they are easier to control.
Galaxy owners can use Good Lock's QuickStar, and Pixel owners can try System UI Tuner, to hide status bar icons for free.
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