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LG G6 tips, tricks and best hidden features

Our LG G6 tips and tricks guide reveals the best hidden features and essential tools for getting the most from your new G6 mobile.

Just bought yourself a shiny new LG G6 smartphone, and want to learn some neat tricks? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve delved deep into the G6’s buried-away settings to find the most useful tools that you might not know about. This comprehensive guide covers everything from getting better battery life and fully customising your desktops, to capturing perfect shots on the LG G6’s dual-lens camera.

For everything you need to know about the LG G6, including reviews, camera tests, specs, UK price and release date info and more, check out our in-depth LG G6 hub.

How to bring back the apps drawer on the LG G6

When you first boot up your LG G6, all of your apps will be stuck right there on your desktops. Unlike many Android phones, there’s no apps drawer which can be used to hide away any that you don’t regularly use.

Thankfully this can be remedied quite easily. All you need to do to turn on the apps tray feature is head to the G6’s settings menu and tap the ‘Display’ tab. At the very top you’ll spy a Home Screen option. Give this a tap and then prod ‘Select Home’.

The third option here should be ‘Home & app drawer’. Tap this and your G6 will download a new interface which includes the apps tray. Note that when you switch to the new home screen, you’ll unfortunately lose your current apps and widgets layout.

How to turn on one-handed features on the LG G6

The G6 is surprisingly easy to handle and operate considering the mighty 5.7-inch screen, but you might still need a bit of help from time to time. Luckily LG has included a useful feature to aid one-handed operation.

Head to the Display section of the G6’s settings menu and you’ll see the ‘Home touch buttons’ option. Give that a tap and then select Button Combination. In here you’ll have the option of adding a ‘Notification’ button to the row of virtual buttons at the bottom of the screen. When you tap this, it will drag down the notifications bar on your behalf – saving you the effort of stretching your thumb to the top of the display.

Worried about fumbling and dropping your LG G6? Check out our reviews of the best G6 cases and covers.

How to use the LG G6’s App Scaling mode

The G6’s 18:9 screen aspect ratio is excellent for enjoying widescreen movies on the go, or using two apps side-by-side with Android’s Splitscreen mode. However, many Android apps aren’t optimised for a stretched screen, which means black borders down the sides.

Many developers are tweaking their apps to support this new format, but for now you can always use LG’s App Scaling mode to fill the screen. To do this, bring up the virtual toolbar by flicking a finger up from the bottom of the display. You’ll notice that in addition to the back, home and recent apps buttons, the App Scaling icon also pops onto the screen. This is a picture of a rectangle with arrows inside of it, housed in a blue circle.

Just tap this icon and you’ll get a choice of three settings – Compatibility, Standard and Full Screen. To fill the display, hit Full Screen. The app will restart with the new aspect ratio settings. Note that this mode basically just zooms into the app, which means some cropping will occur on the long edges. This might therefore not be suitable for use with every app.

How to take quick notes on the LG G6

If you need to quickly jot down a name, number, reminder or some other kind of note, there’s a shortcut key for that. Just double-tap the volume up button when your phone’s off and you’ll jump straight into the Quick Capture feature. This allows you to scribble whatever you like with a fingertip and then save it for later.

If you don’t want this shortcut, you can turn it off by heading to the phone’s settings and then tapping on General. Find the ‘Shortcut Keys’ setting and disable it, and the Quick Capture feature will be axed.

How to free up or add more storage space on the LG G6

Your LG G6 comes with a rather generous 64GB of built-in storage, which will take some filling up – unless you’re shooting a lot of 4K video footage, of course. But if you do find yourself running short, try these simple tricks.

First, open LG’s Smart Doctor app and you’ll see how much of your internal storage is currently full. If you tap ‘optimise phone’, the G6 will dump all of the temporary files and junk clogging your storage and free some space for use.

If that’s not enough, try slipping a microSD memory card into the LG G6. The G6 supports memory cards up to 2TB in size, so you can boost the storage space by a ridiculous amount, for not too much cash.

When you have your card, pop the LG G6’s SIM tray using the pin tool bundled in the box. The microSD memory card slips into the second slot, alongside your SIM. Push the tray back into place and the G6 should immediately recognise it. From this point it’s ready to use.

Head to the Downloads app and you can see exactly what’s stored on your phone right now. A tap of the menu icon (in the top left corner) brings up the settings, where you can switch between the main storage and your memory card. Try copying some videos and other big files from the internal storage to the microSD if you want to free up some space on the G6.

How to get better battery life from the LG G6

The G6 actually enjoys rather good battery life, happily making it through a full day even with full-on use. However, if you forget to charge it or find yourself stranded outdoors with an almost depleted battery, there are some built-in features to help.

Read next: Phones with the best battery life

First of all, you can try the standard quick and easy solutions. Dial down the screen brightness by heading to the Display settings, for instance, which burns through less energy when you need to use the G6. You can also change the screen timeout delay to 30 seconds, so your display isn’t wasting energy when not in use.

However, LG has also included a Battery Saver feature which can help out in dire situations. In the settings menu, head to General and then ‘Battery & power saving’ to get this set up.

The battery usage tool shows you exactly what’s been sucking juice, so if your G6 is draining in no time at all, head there to discover the main culprits. If one or two apps are proving persistent offenders, you might want to hit the Stop button beside them to shut them down whenever they’re not in use.

The Battery Saver mode is your typical power-efficient feature which trims any non-essential elements to preserve battery life. You can turn this on at any time inside the Battery Saver settings, or have it automatically activate at either 5 percent or 15 percent battery. This will restrict the background use of apps, so you’ll have to manually sync your emails and the rest.

You can also turn off that Always On display, which constantly shows you any waiting notifications when the G6 is hibernating.

Read next: How to get better smartphone battery life

LG G6 Smart Settings

Tucked away in the General section in the G6’s settings menu is LG’s Smart Settings feature. This is basically an automation tool which intelligently performs set tasks at specific times.

So for instance, the ‘At home’ setting can detect when you arrive at your home address and then set your phone’s ringtone to loud (in case you leave the G6 sat on a table somewhere), turn off Bluetooth and switch on WiFi to connect to your home network. You can also set options for when you leave home, to do the opposite.

Smart Settings can also automatically launch a specific app when you connect headphones (either via the jack or using Bluetooth). Handy if you want to jump straight into Spotify or your music streaming service of choice.

How to quick-load the LG G6’s camera

Need to take a spontaneous photo or shoot an impromptu video, and don’t have the time to fiddle around unlocking your phone and searching for the app? No worries. You can quickly load the G6’s camera whenever the phone is turned off by double-tapping the volume down button. This boots you straight into the camera app, so you can snap away.

You can turn off this feature at any time by heading into the G6’s settings menu and tapping into the General section. In here you’ll spot the ‘Shortcut Keys’ setting. Just disable this and the camera will no longer quick-load.

How to use the LG G6’s camera app

The LG G6’s camera app is rather complex, with lots of different features to play around with. If you want to know more about those camera features, head over to our in-depth LG G6 camera review.

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