Nothing Phone Hidden Tricks: 15 Settings I Actually Use
The best Nothing Phone hidden tricks are the ones that make the phone feel more like yours, and Nothing OS has a surprising amount of that tucked away. My favorites are the Essential Key remap, atmospheric wallpapers, app hiding that does not break notifications, and a couple of security and gesture settings that are way too easy to miss. If you use a Nothing Phone with an Essential Key, the biggest takeaway is simple: that button can be far more powerful than it is out of the box.
The Essential Key can become a proper action button
The Essential Key is way more useful when it is not limited to Essential Space. I managed to remap it so a single press switches between vibrate and ring modes, a double press launches the camera app, and a long press launches Google Gemini. The best part is that this does not require root access, although it does take a few steps to set up.
we've essentially unlocked a highly customizable action button for any Nothing phone with an essential key.
— Sam Beckman| Essential Key action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Single press | Toggles ring and vibrate modes |
| Double press | Opens the camera |
| Long press | Launches Google Gemini |
To do it, you need Shizuku, Hail, and Button Mapper. First, get Shizuku running, then use Hail to disable Essential Recorder and Essential Space with the Shizuku disable working mode. Once tapping the Essential Key does nothing, Button Mapper can detect it as a custom button and let you assign single tap, double tap, and long press actions.
Inside Button Mapper, I also like increasing the button vibration a little, turning on screen off actions, and enabling the turn screen on toggle. That way the shortcuts still feel immediate, even when the display is off.
Power button shortcuts are much easier to customize
Customizing the power key is nowhere near as complex. In Settings, under Special features and Gestures, you can change what happens when you double press the power button. There are plenty of built-in options, but the cool bit is that you can also choose a third-party app or even one of its shortcuts.
I also prefer changing press and hold from the digital assistant to the power menu. It is a power button, right? I want to see my power menu when I press it. If you still want quick access to Google Gemini, enable swipe to invoke the assistant from the navigation mode settings, then swipe from the bottom corner of the screen.
Hide the navigation bar without losing Circle to Search completely
Nothing OS lets you hide the navigation bar completely, which unlocks a super clean and minimal look. The catch is that hiding the navigation bar disables Circle to Search. If you still want Circle to Search, MiCTS can remap a long press of the Essential Key to activate it instead.
Three-finger screenshots are hidden in gestures
In the screenshot gesture menu, Nothing hides a genuinely useful three-finger swipe shortcut for taking screenshots. You can also press and hold with three fingers to take partial screenshots, which is handy when you only need one section of the screen.
If you want to go all in on that gesture, Nothing OS also lets you disable the regular power and volume down screenshot shortcut altogether. That is a nice touch if you keep triggering screenshots accidentally.
Floating windows can juggle three apps at once
Pop-up view has been around for a while, but in Nothing OS 4.1 it now lets you open three apps in floating window space at the same time. You cannot see all three floating windows simultaneously, but inactive apps collapse into little floating pills, and tapping a pill switches which floating app is active.
That makes it surprisingly quick to jump between apps like Google Play Store, Twitter, and Google Chrome without fully leaving what you are doing. When you are finished, drag the floating windows up to dismiss the extras, then tap the remaining window and hit the X.
Experimental features bring back some Nothing personality
The experimental features menu is worth checking. There is an AirPods option that shows an AirPods icon in quick settings and the settings app when they are connected, which makes them feel a little more native on a Nothing Phone.
There is also a section for integrating the phone's glyphs with third-party apps, although the options are fairly limited at the time of making the video. My favorite experimental option is the dot matrix title toggle, because it brings back the lovely Nothing dot font for headings inside the settings app.
Depth effect looks cool, but atmosphere wallpapers are still my favorite
Lock screen depth effects are new, and they work when your wallpaper has a prominent foreground element. Long press the lock screen, tap customize lock screen, unlock with biometrics, then tap the depth effect icon. When it works, the lock screen clock sits behind the foreground element.
If the depth effect does not work straight away, try tapping the clock, changing its size, switching the alignment from center to left, or pinching and moving the wallpaper so the foreground element covers the clock properly. The feature is labeled beta, and honestly, that label makes sense.
Atmospheric wallpapers blur the home screen version of your wallpaper and add a subtle grain effect, which makes icons and widgets easier to see. You can also enable a glass effect for the lock screen wallpaper, and the unlock animation into the blurry home screen version is lovely.
Nothing OS 4 brings back regular app hiding
With Nothing OS 3.0, Nothing removed the much-loved app hiding feature and replaced it with the not-so-loved private space feature. In Nothing OS 4, regular app hiding is finally back. Open the app drawer, long press an icon, and tap the hide icon.
The best part is that hidden apps do not stop working and do not stop sending notifications like they can with private space. They are literally just hidden from the app drawer. To find them again, scroll to the bottom of the app drawer, open the hidden folder, and unlock with biometrics.
Quick settings are finally more flexible
In Nothing OS 3, the Bluetooth tile was oddly the only quick settings tile that could be made large. In Nothing OS 4, you can tap the pencil icon, choose a tile, and use the little arrow to convert it into a large toggle. I did it with the glyphs tile and the Essential Recorder tile, and it makes building a quick settings layout that works for me much easier.
While you are in quick settings, long pressing the torch icon activates the glyph torch. Instead of using the regular flashlight, it turns on the phone's lights or dot matrix interface, giving you a much softer light that is way less harsh. I use that feature all the time.
Extra dark mode finally gives Nothing OS a true dark theme
In Display settings, turn on dark theme and you can enable the new extra dark mode toggle. This has been a long-requested feature because it changes the old washed out dark gray look into a true dark theme with a proper black background and far fewer splashes of color.
That makes the phone much easier on the eyes in darker environments. It is a small switch, but if you use your Nothing Phone at night, it is one of the first settings I would turn on.
The status bar can be cleaned up properly
Right under the dark theme option is a little-known status bar customization section. I use it to declutter my own status bar by disabling the battery percentage, vibrate mode icon, VPN icon, and sometimes even the Bluetooth icon.
You can go the other way too and enable extra icons, like internet speed. This is one of those tiny Nothing OS settings that adds to the overall experience because it lets you decide how much information you actually want to see.
Power off verify is buried, but you should know where it is
Power off verify means that when your screen is locked, anyone trying to turn off the phone needs to enter the device passcode first. The idea is to stop someone from immediately disabling tracking features if your phone has been stolen.
The only issue is that the setting is buried pretty deep. Go to Settings, Security and privacy, More security and privacy, then enable Power off verify. After that, turning off the phone from the lock screen requires the passcode.
The close all apps gesture saves an annoying swipe
One of my favorite Nothing OS gestures is also one I still forget about. In the recents panel, you do not need to swipe all the way to the end to reach the clear all button. Just long press the active app in the middle, then swipe up, and it clears the entire recents panel straight away.
From Sam Beckman
Subscribe to Sam Beckman
New tech reviews, deals, and honest setups every week.