How to Use Lock Screen Widgets on Your Samsung Phone

Widgets are small interactive app shortcuts that display some data and allow you to perform actions without actually opening the app. For example, the weather widget shows data for the current temperature or next week’s forecast, and you can tap it to open the app. Widgets for the clock, email, lists and others are great for showing information without having to use an app.

While most Android phones only allow home screen widgets, you can get them on the lock screen on Samsung Galaxy phones. Here’s how to set them up.

Samsung devices with One UI 3.0 or later have the option for lock screen widgets in settings. Although it doesn’t allow you to use all the home screen widgets on the lock screen, it does have some useful widgets for music, alarms, weather, the Digital Wellbeing app, and today’s schedule. How to use them on your lock screen:

1. open that settings App on your phone, scroll down and tap lock screen Possibility.
2. From the Lock screen menu, tap on widgets.
3. On the Widgets page, turn on the widgets you want on your lock screen or always-on display (AOD). If you want to use more than one widget, you can also rearrange their position by tapping them Rearrange and move them up or down as needed.
4. Access the widgets on the lock screen by tapping the clock after enabling it in the widgets menu.

Samsung phones have a lot of good widgets, but you can only use a few on the lock screen. If you want more widgets – or if you want to use them on a non-Samsung phone – you can use a third-party app called Lockscreen Widgets.

The app lets you use all of your home screen widgets on your lock screen. Also, you can add custom widgets from apps like KWGT. The lockscreen widgets app is compatible with any phone or tablet running Android 5.1 or higher and costs $1.49 on the Google Play Store.

Step 1: Grant permissions

In order to be able to use the app, you must grant it the necessary permissions. After opening the app, you land on the accessibility page with three swipe movements to the left. Now tap MORE INFOand you will see a dialog box with information about why the app needs this permission.

Tap on Grant to open the Accessibility menu in your phone’s settings. Choose Lock Screen Widgets in the list to grant permission. While you allow it, your phone will show you what data the app is accessing with that permission, so only give it if you’re ok with it.

Now repeat the process for the notification and storage permissions, then you can start using the app.

Step 2: Add your widgets

Once you have granted all permissions, the app will take you to the home screen where you can add widgets.

1. Turn those on Allowed switch, then tap Add widget and select the one you want on the lock screen. Repeat the process if you need to add more than one.
2. Tap the preview to see how it will look on the lock screen.
3. On the lock screen, tap and hold the widget with two fingers to enter or exit customization mode, and swipe to switch between them.
4. In customization mode, tap and hold the navigation Icon to drag and place the widget anywhere on the lock screen. The option to align widgets horizontally or vertically is present on the left and right of the navigation icon. In addition, you can adjust its size by dragging the sliders on the widget’s border.
5. In customization mode, you can hide widgets by tapping sight range icon at the top left and add more widgets by tapping plus icon at top right.
6. To remove a lock screen widget, long press on it with one finger. It shows the remove icon in the top right corner.

Step 3: Adjust the settings

In the app when you go to the lock screen widget settingsyou can tweak the following options:

• Looks: You can change background color, enable or disable background blur and its degree, adjust widget corner radius as well as widget border and finally use Masked modewhich tries to draw your wallpaper as the widget’s background
• Layout: In this section you can adjust the number of rows and columns per page and lock the widget frame. However, remember that if you do this, you will not be able to move or resize them.
• Visibility: This section contains settings for hiding widgets during certain operations, e.g. B. when a notification appears on the lock screen, when you pull down the notification shade, when you enter the PIN/pattern/password or when the device is in landscape mode.
• Behavior: In this section you can enable or disable the animation of the widget, adjust the animation duration, change the behavior of the page display, etc.
• Interaction: Here you can enable touch protection, which will ignore touches on the widget when your phone’s proximity sensor is covered. This section also provides an option to unlock the device and clear the notification when a widget launches an app.

Along with all these lock screen widgets and customizations, the app also offers a widget drawer option. You can enable it by toggling on Allowed option in the Widget Drawer menu and then add widgets as you did for the lock screen.

After enabling the widget drawer, you will see a slider on the top right of your screen. Swiping this slider will reveal all widgets in the drawer. Like the lock screen widgets, the drawer offers many customization options settings menu to help you with the correct configuration.

The lockscreen widgets app isn’t free, but once you use it, you know it’s worth the money. It offers a lot more features than the built-in option on Samsung phones. The app lets you use all your home screen widgets on the lock screen.

And if you are more interested in lock screen customization, you might be interested in our guide on how to use video as lock screen wallpaper.