Remap the Essential Key into a proper action button
The Essential Key is the trick I’m most excited about because I managed to make it do three different things without root access. On my setup, a single press switches between vibrate and ring modes, a double press launches the camera, and a long press opens Google Gemini. How good is that?
This is not a native Nothing OS feature, and it takes a few steps, but the result is exactly the kind of control I wish Nothing would just build in. Nothing clearly wants people using Essential Space, but letting users remap that key natively would be incredibly powerful because, honestly, that kind of maximum control is what Android is all about.
How I remapped the Essential Key
- Install and set up the linked version of Shizuku first.
- Install Hail, open the apps page, tap the filter icon, switch the filter to system, and search for “essential.”
- Select Essential Recorder and Essential Space.
- Go to Hail settings and change the working mode to Shizuku disable.
- Allow the Shizuku permission all the time, return to Hail’s home tab, and tap the freeze icon.
- Once the Essential Key does nothing, open Button Mapper.
- Enable the Use Shizuku option in Button Mapper and allow the permission all the time.
- Tap Add Buttons, press the Essential Key, and add it as a custom button.
- Open the new custom button entry and enable it.
- Set single tap to System, then Toggle ring/vibrate.
- Set double tap to Actions, then Open camera.
- Set long press to Assistant.
- Increase button vibration if you want more feedback.
- Enable screen off actions so the shortcuts work with the screen off.
- Enable turn screen on if you want the key to wake the display too.
Once it’s done, the Essential Key becomes a highly customizable action button. For me, single press toggles ring and vibrate, double press opens the camera, and long press launches Gemini.
Customize the power button without any extra apps
The power key is much easier to customize than the Essential Key. Go to Settings, Special features, Gestures, and you’ll find two power-button settings. The double-press option gives you a stack of built-in actions, but the cooler part is that you can also choose a third-party app or even one of its shortcuts.
The press-and-hold setting is the one I change straight away. By default, it launches the digital assistant, but I switch it back to the power menu because it is a power button. I want the power menu when I press it.
If you still want quick access to Google Gemini after doing that, go into navigation mode, tap the settings cog, and enable Swipe to invoke assistant. Then you can swipe from the bottom corner of the screen to bring up the assistant instead.
Hide the navigation bar for a cleaner Nothing OS look
Inside the navigation settings, there’s a toggle that completely hides the navigation bar. It gives the phone a super clean, minimal look, which is very much the Nothing OS vibe.
Use three fingers for full and partial screenshots
Nothing hides another handy gesture inside the screenshot gesture menu. You can enable a three-finger swipe to take a screenshot, and you can press and hold with three fingers to take a partial screenshot.
If you want to go all in on the gesture, Nothing OS also lets you disable the traditional power and volume-down screenshot shortcut completely. That way, screenshots become fully gesture-based.
Run up to three floating apps in Nothing OS 4.1
Pop-up view has been around for a while, but in Nothing OS 4.1, Nothing unlocked a more useful version of it. You can now open three apps in the floating window space at the same time, although you cannot see all three windows simultaneously.
When you drag an app to the top and release it, that app becomes the active floating window. Open another app the same way, and the previous one collapses into a small floating pill. You can tap the pill to switch between floating apps, and you can keep up to three ready to jump between.
Turn on experimental Nothing OS features
The Experimental features menu has a few small but genuinely nice options. If you use AirPods, Nothing OS can show an AirPods icon in quick settings and inside the settings app when they’re connected, which makes them feel a bit more native.
There is also a section for integrating your phone’s Glyphs with third-party apps, although the options are fairly limited at the time I made the video. My favorite experimental toggle is Dot matrix title, which brings back the end-dot-style headings in the settings app that a lot of us loved from older versions of Nothing OS.
Depth effect looks cool, but it is still janky
Lock screen depth effects are one of the newer customization tricks. Long press the lock screen, tap Customize lock screen, unlock with biometrics, and if your wallpaper has a strong foreground element, you’ll see an icon that lets you enable the depth effect. When it works, the clock sits behind the foreground subject.
If the depth effect does not appear straight away, try tapping the clock and changing its size or alignment. You can also pinch and move the wallpaper so the foreground element covers the clock in the right spot.
Atmosphere wallpapers are still one of my favorite Nothing OS features
Atmospheric wallpapers are currently one of my favorite parts of Nothing OS in general. Pick a photo from the wallpaper picker, and Nothing OS gives you an atmosphere effect that blurs the home screen version of the wallpaper and adds a subtle grain effect. That makes icons and widgets stand out more.
You can also enable a glass effect for the lock screen version of the wallpaper. With both effects enabled, the lock screen gets that glassy look, and when you unlock the phone, it transitions into the blurred home screen wallpaper with a lovely animation. Fingers crossed Nothing eventually lets us use depth effect and atmosphere together, because I cannot go without my atmosphere wallpapers.
Nothing OS 4 brings back normal app hiding
Nothing OS 3.0 removed the much-loved app hiding feature and replaced it with Private Space, which was not exactly loved in the same way. With Nothing OS 4, regular app hiding is finally back.
Open the app drawer, long press an app icon, and tap the hide icon. The app disappears from the drawer, but the best part is that it does not stop working and it still sends notifications. It is literally just hidden from the app drawer, which is perfect for hiding customization apps or anything else without breaking functionality.
To find hidden apps, scroll to the bottom of the app drawer, open the Hidden folder, and authenticate with biometrics.
Make more quick settings tiles large in Nothing OS 4
Nothing OS 3 had a weird limitation where the Bluetooth tile was the only quick settings tile you could make large. In Nothing OS 4, you can make other tiles large too, which makes custom quick settings layouts much easier to build.
Open quick settings, tap the pencil icon, tap a tile, and use the little arrow to convert it into a large toggle. I did this with the Glyphs tile and Essential Recorder tile, and it immediately made the panel feel more useful for the way I actually use the phone.
Long press the torch tile for the Glyph torch
The normal torch toggle is obvious, but the hidden trick is long pressing the torch icon in quick settings. That activates the Glyph torch, which turns on your phone’s lights or dot matrix interface instead of the regular flashlight.
The Glyph torch gives off a soft light that is way less harsh than the regular torch. It is one of those small features I use all the time.
Extra dark mode finally gives Nothing OS a true dark theme
Inside Display, Dark theme, there is now an Extra dark mode toggle. This has been a long-requested feature by Nothing users because the old dark theme had that washed-out dark gray look.
Extra dark mode changes the interface to a proper black background with far fewer splashes of color. It makes the phone much easier on the eyes when you’re using it in darker environments.
Declutter or expand the status bar
Nothing OS also has a little-known status bar customization section under the display settings. I use it to declutter my own status bar by disabling battery percentage, the vibrate mode icon, and the VPN icon. Sometimes I even hide the Bluetooth icon.
You can go the other direction too. If you want more information visible, you can enable extra icons like internet speed. These little customization options add a lot to the overall Nothing OS experience.
Turn on power off verify for better theft protection
Power off verify is a newer security feature that requires your phone’s passcode before the phone can be turned off while the screen is locked. The idea is simple: if someone has your locked phone, they cannot immediately power it down to disable tracking features.
The only issue is that the setting is buried pretty deep. Go to Settings, Security and privacy, More security and privacy, then find Power off verify about halfway down and enable it.
Clear all recent apps with one gesture
The close all apps gesture is one of my favorite Nothing OS features, and even I forget about it a lot of the time. Instead of swiping all the way to the end of the recents screen to reach the Clear all button, just open recents, long press the active app in the middle, and swipe up.
That clears the entire recents panel straight away. Love that feature.
The settings I’d enable first
If I were setting up a Nothing Phone from scratch, I’d start with the simple wins: switch the power button back to the power menu, enable the assistant corner swipe, turn on three-finger screenshots, set up app hiding, enable extra dark mode, and turn on power off verify.
After that, I’d spend time on the fun stuff: atmosphere wallpapers, larger quick settings toggles, the Glyph torch, and eventually the Essential Key remap if your phone has that key. The built-in settings already make Nothing OS feel more personal, but that remapped Essential Key is the one that really makes the phone feel like it belongs to you.