ColorOS 17 Tips: 15 Hidden OPPO Tricks I’d Actually Use
ColorOS 17 is packed with hidden tricks that make OPPO’s latest software feel smarter, smoother, and more intuitive to use. From the new lock screen media artwork and AI Mind Pilot’s Agent Mode to genuinely useful features like bypass charging, badge clearing, and app pinning gestures, there’s a lot to discover beyond the obvious upgrades. Here are 15 hidden tricks in ColorOS 17 that you’ll want to try on your OPPO phone.
ColorOS 17 makes the whole OPPO interface feel alive
The first thing that hit me on the OPPO Find X10 was the new boot-up animation. It is incredibly fancy, brand spanking new, and unlike any other phone boot-up animation I’ve seen on the market. To me, that one animation says a lot about the attention to detail OPPO has put into ColorOS 17.
The new Flux clock behavior is even better. ColorOS 16 already had that beautifully seamless transition from the always-on display clock to the lock screen clock, but ColorOS 17 takes it further. If you have the Flux clock widget on your home screen, the clock now animates from the always-on display to the lock screen and then onto the home screen, even when all three clocks are completely different sizes.
I genuinely believe that this is the sort of stuff that truly does make a software experience feel complete when it comes to using a phone.
— Sam BeckmanThe lock screen media player has also had a proper glow-up. When media is playing, the lock screen transforms into a full-screen artwork view with media controls. You can swipe the player down to return to the regular lock screen, swipe it back up to show controls, or swipe down and tap to bring back the full-screen experience.
It is not just the big animations either. ColorOS 17 adds touch response animations across the OS, and they make the interface feel genuinely dynamic. The control center and notification panel bounce as you move between them, the bottom bar in the clock app stretches with your finger, the sidebar gently responds to touch, and sliders light up and stretch as you drag across them.
Pinch to clear notification badges on your OPPO home screen
One of the best hidden home screen tricks is clearing app notification badges with a gesture. If you have a bunch of apps covered in badges and you just want the home screen to look clean again, ColorOS 17 lets you wipe them away with a two-finger pinch out gesture.
- Long press the home screen.
- Tap Home screen settings.
- Scroll down and enable the badge-clearing setting.
- Pinch out with two fingers on the home screen.
Once it is enabled, the badges clear instantly, and of course there is a lovely little bounce animation to go with it. That is exactly the kind of small ColorOS 17 trick that feels unnecessary until you start using it.
AI Mind Pilot now has Ask Mode and Agent Mode
AI Mind Pilot technically debuted on ColorOS 16 with the Find X9 Ultra, but it has a couple of notable upgrades in ColorOS 17. It now has two modes: Ask Mode and Agent Mode.
Ask Mode acts as a middleman between leading AI models and your personal knowledge base from the Mind Space app. Instead of opening ChatGPT or Google Gemini separately and hoping you picked the model with the best answer, Ask Mode lets you enable multiple AI models and ask all of them the same question in one go. Within a few short moments, you can compare their responses side by side.
Agent Mode is the bigger upgrade. OPPO describes it as Android’s first ever agent OS built into a phone, and the first AI agent that can organize your local data, including your photos and files. The important bit is that it does this completely on device, so your data stays private and secure.
The example that sold the idea for me was trip planning. You can ask AI Mind Pilot to create a 4-day itinerary for an upcoming trip, and because your flight details, hotel confirmations, restaurant reservations, event tickets, and other saved files are already on your phone, it can build the plan around what you have actually booked. It can even reorganize those scattered documents into one folder and rename them based on their content and date.
Agent Mode also works with photos stored on your phone. I used it to create a better optimized version of a YouTube thumbnail for posting to Instagram stories, and within a few short moments it produced the result. That is pretty dang cool.
AI Photo Agent makes advanced edits feel less daunting
AI Photo Agent is built to simplify advanced photo editing for anyone who normally finds that sort of thing daunting. In the photo editor, you tap Edit, choose AI editor, then select Photo Agent. From there, you can use natural language prompts to tell it what you want.
I tried a prompt asking it to make an image look more cinematic with moodier lighting, and the edit was applied within mere moments. The before-and-after comparison made the change clear, and there is a slider that lets you dial in the intensity of the edit instead of just accepting the first result.
If you have no clue where to begin, AI Photo Agent also includes templates you can apply with a single tap. There is a style match feature too, where you import a reference image, add your own prompt or choose one of the suggested prompts, and ColorOS 17 analyzes the reference image’s lighting, mood, color, and portrait style to recreate a similar look in your own photo.
AI Mind Suggest, Mind Space, and OSee add smarter context
AI Mind Suggest is one of those features that should be useful precisely because it gets out of the way until you need it. It surfaces relevant information and services at the right moments. If you have an upcoming event, it can show related information and reminders like weather or traffic information, so you do not have to dig through different apps.
You can add AI Mind Suggest as a widget by long pressing the home screen, tapping Widgets, choosing the top AI Suggest option, and tapping Add. After that, you can long press the widget to access extra customization options and make it suit your needs.
AI Mind Space also gets a quality-of-life improvement called long dot capture. Previously, you were limited to saving a single page at a time. In ColorOS 17, long dot capture lets you save entire documents to AI Mind Space in one go.
OSee is the final AI-based feature that really feels useful. You point your camera at something, and OSee recognizes the context and surfaces relevant information. It can identify a plant and provide care information, analyze a snack for nutritional facts and allergen information, and scan documents, menus, and QR codes.
Home screen layouts are easier to clean up and restore
ColorOS 17 adds a new Group button when you long press the home screen. From there, you get three home screen management options that make a messy setup much easier to deal with.
- Sort apps by category for a more organized layout.
- Sort apps by color for a seriously fun-looking home screen.
- Use layout history to restore a previous home screen layout.
The layout history option is the one I can see saving people the most frustration. If you have spent time building a home screen layout and then changed things around, ColorOS 17 gives you a quick way to bring an earlier setup back.
Recents has two hidden gestures worth knowing
The recents menu has a handy app pinning gesture that a lot of people will miss. You can lock an app so it stays in recents even after you clear everything, and you do not need to open the menu to do it. Just swipe the app down in recents, and it is pinned.
There is also a recents layout option hidden behind the three-dot menu. Tap the three dots, tap Manage, and you can switch from the default flat view to a stacked view instead. If you did not know that was there, now you do.
Shake to launch can turn your torch into a quick gesture
Inside Settings, open Accessibility and convenience, then Gestures and motions. Right at the bottom, there is a Shake to launch option that lets you set a quick shake gesture to open the camera app or turn the phone’s torch on and off.
My personal favorite use is the torch. Once the flashlight is on, ColorOS 17 also gives you a new intensity slider interface by long pressing the torch icon in quick settings. It looks a million bucks, and it is much nicer than a basic on-off toggle.
Bypass charging is hugely underrated for gaming while plugged in
Bypass charging is not new, but it is still hugely underrated. You will find it in Settings, then Battery, then Charging settings, all the way down near the bottom.
The practical use case is anything intensive while plugged in, like gaming. Because the phone is drawing power from the charger rather than pushing charge into the battery at the same time, it can help keep the phone physically cooler and put less stress on the battery.
My favorite ColorOS 17 tricks so far
ColorOS 17 is packed with features, but the stuff that really sticks with me is the mix of polish and practicality. The living clock, lock screen media player, and touch animations make the phone feel more complete every time you use it. AI Mind Pilot, AI Photo Agent, OSee, and bypass charging are the features I can see people using for actual tasks rather than just showing off.
That is why this update feels so satisfying. ColorOS 17 is not only throwing AI tools everywhere, and it is not only adding pretty animations. The best tricks are the ones that make an OPPO phone feel smoother, faster to control, and genuinely more helpful.
From Sam Beckman
Subscribe to Sam Beckman
New tech reviews, deals, and honest setups every week.