Change These Seven Settings on Your New Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5

Your new device is much more versatile—and that means you have to configure things a little differently.

If you've taken the plunge on a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 then you're no doubt eager to take advantage of the benefits of a foldable phone over a traditional handset: The new device you've got in your pocket operates like a standard phone, but can also open out its main screen to a mini-tablet size, making it much more versatile.

It also means different settings and options are required that you won't find on other phones—settings that control how the software interface responds to the dual screen setup (and the fact that one screen can be folded in half). These are some key settings that matter on the Galaxy Z Fold 5, and what you can do with them.

Extend flex mode

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Flex mode is where you have your Galaxy Z Fold 5 partially folded over in a landscape orientation, almost like a tiny laptop, and the display splits accordingly. One app that takes advantage of this is YouTube, which puts your videos on the top half of the display, and playback controls on the bottom.

For apps that don't have a special flex mode configuration, you can get a touchpad on the lower half of the display, plus shortcuts to split-screen mode and other settings. To make sure this layout also appears, head to Settings, then pick Advanced features, Labs, and Flex mode panel. The next screen lets you enable or disable flex mode, and bring up the touchpad in flex mode for apps that don't specifically support it.

Always show the multi window menu

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Part of the appeal of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is you can run apps side by side on the main screen, or even in one quarter of the screen space. This can be managed in a variety of ways, including via the multi window menu—the small horizontal line that shows up at the top of apps when you have more than one app on screen at once.

For even more convenience, you can display this menu even with only one app on screen. For a start, it makes it easier to add a second window if you need to, or shrink down the current one. To make sure this menu is always at your disposal, open Settings, choose Advanced features, then enable Show multi window menu with 1 window.

Enable multi window for all apps

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I've already mentioned the flexibility that multiple windows can offer you on the main screen, but not every app has been designed to show up on half of the screen or a pop-up window. You can still force apps to be used in this way by opening Settings, then picking Advanced features and Labs, and enabling Multi window for all apps. (Just be prepared for results of varying quality.)

Switch apps between displays

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By default, if you're using an app on the main display of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and then close the phone, the same app won't then show up on the smaller cover display on the outside of the device.

You can change this if you want, though: From Settings, pick Display, and then Continue apps on cover screen. You can then pick specific apps that will flow from the main screen to the cover screen, or set them all to behave like this. If you're going in the other direction—using an app on the outer display and then opening up the phone—the app will always jump to the larger screen automatically. There's no way to change this behavior.

Keep your home screens in sync

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Out of the box, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 will keep the home screens for the inner display and the outer display separate, so changes you make (in terms of widgets or shortcuts) will be kept separate, depending on the screen you're using.

You can get a more consistent and seamless experience by mirroring the home screens across these two displays. Launch Settings, then choose Home screen and select Cover screen mirroring to turn it on. The cover screen is of course smaller than the main display, so you'll have to swipe across to see everything. (The main display home screen won't be squashed to fit.)

Tweak the taskbar

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The Galaxy Z Fold 5 has a Windows-style taskbar on its main display to make it easier to jump between apps and to bring them up alongside each other. If you pick Display and then Taskbar from Settings, you can toggle this taskbar on or off, as well as choose how many recent apps (two, three or four) are shown on it.

Force apps to go full screen

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In a perfect world, every Android app would be optimized to run on a large, 1812 x 2176 pixel display like the Galaxy Z Fold 5 has. But we don't live in a perfect world. As a result, certain apps may look a little odd on the main display, with black bars down the sides.

To force apps to fill the available space, choose Display from Settings, and then Full screen apps. From here you can select installed apps, and force them to run full screen. If an app doesn't look right, you can also limit it to a more standard 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio.

You can pick up a Galaxy Z Fold 5 for 22% off on Amazon as of this article:

• Galaxy Z Fold 5, 512GB: $1,499 (was $1,919.99)