Samsung's Modes and Routines work better now, but still don't sync

Samsung's Modes and Routines feature seems to run more smoothly on the company's newest software, One UI 9. Your setups still won't follow you from one Galaxy phone to another. That is the verdict from Android Police writer Jamaluddeen Adamu, who uses the feature on more than one Samsung phone.

What the feature does

Modes and Routines lets a Galaxy phone change itself based on what you are doing. A mode can adjust wallpaper, notification settings, screen color profiles, speaker volume and more. The writer has one that starts Spotify and plays the last song when a workout app opens. Another turns on Gray Scale and Do Not Disturb and swaps the wallpaper at a set time of day.

What got better

On a Galaxy S22+, modes sometimes got stuck. If one was switched on by accident and quickly switched off, parts of it could remain. In one case, a mode's wallpaper permanently replaced the regular one. Complex automations that swipe, scroll and act inside different apps also rarely worked. On an S24 Ultra running One UI 9, those problems did not appear.

The writer is not sure why. One UI 9 may have fixed the bugs, or a stronger phone may simply handle them better than a weaker one.

What still doesn't sync

• Smart Switch, Samsung's phone-to-phone transfer tool, says it moves settings but leaves out Modes and Routines.
• Samsung Cloud syncs things like calendar and contacts, not your modes or routines.
• A change made to a mode on one phone does not show up on another.

This causes real confusion. The writer often thought a mode was malfunctioning, only to realize the tweak had been made on the other phone. The writer also points out that Apple built automatic sync into Focus mode, its closest equivalent.

A partial workaround

A Galaxy Store app called Routines+ can export routines as JSON files, a simple file format, and import them on another device. It is clunky. Importing means reselecting most of the trigger conditions, and there is no way to import a routine exactly as it was exported. It also does not work for Modes.

What to do

Anyone who owns more than one Galaxy phone, or plans to upgrade, should expect to rebuild their modes and routines by hand. The writer admits few Galaxy owners may use the feature, but argues that is no reason to leave it unfinished. The material does not say whether Samsung plans to add sync.