3 reasons you should try Home Up’s latest upgrades on your Samsung Galaxy
Source: Android Authority
When Samsung releases new versions of One UI, it usually breaks some of the Good Lock modules I use every day. The One UI 8.5 beta is no exception — several Good Lock modules have been incompatible since the beta started, including Home Up. Home Up is a module that lets you tweak everything from your home screen icons to the overview menu. Samsung recently updated Home Up, and it does more than make it compatible with the latest version of One UI — it adds new features that have made my favorite Good Lock module better than ever.
Do you use Home Up?
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Widget resize
Home Up has been able to resize app icons for a long time now, and this update extends the same functionality to widgets. On all of my Samsung devices, I set the screen zoom to the smallest size because I find a lot of the UI elements in One UI to be too big. An unfortunate side‑effect of this is that many widgets, Google’s search bar included, don’t scale correctly and look tiny.
The new version of Home Up has a Widget setting menu that lets you increase the scaling of widgets on the home screen, which resolves the issue with the search bar. You can also remove the blur effect from Samsung’s first‑party widgets from this menu, a nice touch if you don’t like how that looks.
Direct Share exclusions
Direct Share is a part of the share menu in One UI. It suggests contacts from across your apps that you frequently share things with, and it intelligently remembers what types of files are often shared with which contact. In practice, it often suggests the wrong person, so I usually ignore it.
For a long time, Home Up let you pick favorite Direct Share targets, pinning the chats you use most for quick access. The Home Up update takes this further by adding an exclusion list, allowing you to block individual chats and share targets from ever appearing.
Edge Panel tweaks
I love the Edge Panel. It’s been my multitasking secret weapon for years, and Home Up has offered neat options for it since One UI 7. The latest update adds quality‑of‑life options that address some long‑standing annoyances.
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Integrated Panel: Combines apps, shortcuts, and contacts panels into a single Edge Panel. When enabled, it starts blank, but a button syncs over your existing apps panel. This makes it easy to add direct shortcuts, such as a new task in TickTick or a Telegram chat.
Zac Kew‑Denniss / Android Authority -
Touch area width: Adjusts the width of the touch area for the Edge Panel without changing the visible handle. This lets you keep the handle small (so it doesn’t cover screen content) while maintaining a generous touch zone—especially useful with cases that add a lip around the screen.
One UI 8.5 is already one of my favorite versions of Samsung’s Android skin, and the updated Good Lock modules are only making me love it even more. What about you? Are you looking forward to trying out the new features from One UI 8.5 and Good Lock? Let us know in the comments.