As I dig around in my Pixel’s settings app, I realize I’ve never really chosen any of them, really. Most of the settings on your Android phone are given to you by Google as defaults, just sitting there and doing things in the background that we never really think to question. So I started turning some of them off.

Five settings later, my phone feels noticeably cleaner, less cluttered, and maybe a bit quieter overall. Here’s what I found and what changed after I switched each one off.

App suggestions in the dock and app drawer

Don’t let Google decide what’s in your dock

The Pixel launcher watches how you use your phone and fills the bottom dock with apps it thinks you’ll want to use next. Most people’s docks, though, are full of pinned apps, so they never see this feature in action. It’s running, anyway. You can test it by removing one of your pinned apps from the dock — long press the phone app, for example, and move it up into your home screen. You’ll see that slot fill with an app you use more often, surrounded by a colored glow.

If you don’t want this feature, you can turn it off easily with a single toggle. Long press the home screen, tap Home settings, then Suggestions, then switch off the Suggestions on Home screen toggle. If you’re using OxygenOS 15 like I am on my OnePlus Open, then you’ll long press on the Home screen, swipe over to the More gear icon, then tap it and then Home screen, then toggle Show suggested apps to off.

With this feature off, empty dock slots stay empty unless you drag an app there, effectively pinning it. That way, your dock reflects what you want to see there, not what Google thinks you should.

Automatically adding new apps to the home screen

Your home screen shouldn’t change every time you install an app

Each time you install an app from the Play Store, Android will drop its icon onto your Home screen, whether you want it to or not. This is on by default on my Pixel and my Open, and it’s really easy to rack up a ton of Home screens. If you’re like me, you’ve been manually deleting these icons for years without even realizing there’s a setting.

On Pixel, long-press the home screen, tap Home Settings, and then uncheck Add app icons to home screen.

On OnePlus, long-press the home screen, tap the More gear, then Home screen. Then turn off Add new apps to Home screen.

Once you take care of this, you’ll see a difference immediately. Install a bunch of apps and your icon pages never get bloated or out of control. What a relief.

Usage and diagnostics sharing

Your phone has been filing reports on you since day one

From the moment you set up your Android phone, it sends data to Google, including information on your app performance, battery stats, system activity, and crash logs. Google uses the information to help improve Android, but that’s to Google’s benefit, not yours. What it means for us is more background processes running and sending info out that you might not want it to, because the toggle is already on.

To change that, drop into Settings > Security & privacy > More security & privacy > Usage & diagnostics and toggle it to off. Nothing breaks or stops working; Google just stops getting the telemetry feed.

On a OnePlus Open, the equivalent lives at Settings > Security & privacy > More security & privacy > Usage & diagnostics, which you can then toggle Off.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning

Turning Wi-Fi off doesn’t exactly turn Wi-Fi off

When you toggle Wi-Fi off in Quick Settings, you’d be justified in assuming that Wi-Fi is, well, off. The thing is, though, it’s not off entirely. Android keeps a separate background scanning process to detect nearby networks even if the Wi-Fi radio is toggled off. This is meant to help apps lock onto your location faster when needed. Bluetooth scanning works the same way.

Both are on by default, and both aren’t connected to the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth off or on toggles.

To turn them off, head into Settings > Location > Location services, then find Wi-Fi scanning and Bluetooth scanning toggles. Set them both to off and you’re good to go. On OnePlus, you’ll find these toggles in Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy controls > Location access > Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning

Of course, this may slow down your location lock-on in apps that need it, but it should be a marginal hit to performance.

Full notification previews on the lock screen

Anyone near your phone can read your messages without unlocking it

Your Android phone displays the full content of your notifications on the lock screen, like message text, sender names, email subject lines, and more. Anyone who glances at your screen can see whatever comes in. You don’t even need to be in the room; it just appears.

Changing this behavior is pretty straightforward, though. On Pixel, go to Settings > Notifications > Notifications on lock screen and toggle Show on lock screen to off. If you want to be more fine-grained control, swipe to the bottom and you can just toggle off Show sensitive content.

OnePlus has this set at Settings > Notifications & Quick Settings > Hide notification details on Lock screen.

Once you make this change, lock screen notifications can still appear (if you haven’t turned off Notifications completely), but the content stays hidden unless you authenticate. The lock screen feels cleaner, and the stress of someone seeing a sensitive notification is lessened a little bit.

Not a radical change

Sure, these aren’t world-shattering changes. Your phone still works the way it always has, but each of these settings are now under your control, instead of on by default. Turning them off takes very little time, and the result is a phone that does a little less without your input, which, honestly, is what I want from a smartphone.

Brand

Google

SoC

Tensor G5

Display

6.3″ Actua display

RAM

12 GB

Storage

128 GB, 256 GB

Battery

4970 mAh

Google’s flagship smartphone, the Google Pixel 10 features the Tensor G5 processor, an outstanding triple-camera system, and seven years of software updates. This is a phone you can rely on for years to come.