The Galaxy S20, S21, S22 lets you customize the style of notification icons in the status bar to avoid cluttered icons. You can choose to show all notification icons, last 3 icons or total number of notification icons in Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar.
This Galaxy S20, S21, S22 guide explains Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar details, icon layout and how to customize the style of notification icons in Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar to hide notification icons, show last 3 icons, show all notification icons, or show only the number of notifications in the status bar.
Please note that the status bar and notification icons work identically on Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra, although there are significant differences between these 3 phones.
What is the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar?
Like all other Android phones (even iPhones), the upper part of the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 screen is reserved for the system to display status icons and notification icons.
As shown in the screenshot below, a typical Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar has two parts separated by the front camera punch hole:
- Notification icons (and time, which cannot be turned off) aligned to the left edge of the front camera.
- Status icons aligned to the right edge, on the right side of the front camera.
Since the Galaxy S8, Samsung allows limiting the total number of notification icons on the status bar. The Galaxy S20, S21, S22 allows more options to customize the notification style on the status bar.
In fact, all Galaxy phones with Android 10 update have similar functionality.
What is the dot in the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar?
You can notice the dot icon, as shown in the screenshot above (marked in the green circle), on the far right of the status bar.
The dot icon in the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar means "and more". In other words, the dot icon tells you that there are more than 3 notification icons.
By default, the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar only displays up to three notification icons. If there are more than 3, the 3 most recent notification icons are displayed and the dot icon begins to appear.
Of course, you can change this default behavior to customize the style of the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar notification icons (read on).
Either way, don't panic when you see the dot icon on the status bar.
You can check this guide to understand the meaning of status icons and notification icons on Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra.
How to customize the style of notification icons in the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar?
If you don't like the default notification icon settings, you can customize the style of notification icons on the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar to:
- Show all notification icons on status bar.
- Disable notification icons in the status bar.
- Show the total number of notification icons, instead of individual icons, on the status bar.
- (Default) show up to 3 notification icons. If there are more than 3, display the 3 most recent icons plus a dot icon.
To customize the style of notification icons on the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar, you can follow the steps below.
- Step 1: Open Settings You can launch Galaxy S20, S21, S22 Settings by tapping the Settings app icon, or the Gear icon in the notification panel, or in the quick settings panel.
- Step 2: Go to notification settings in Settings page, tap on Notifications.
- Step 3: Go to status bar settings. On the Notifications settings page, tap Status bar, as shown above.
- Step 4: Customize the style of the notification icon on the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar. You can now customize the style of the notification icon on the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar as shown in the following screenshots.
#1. 3 most recent (default)
In this mode, as mentioned earlier, only up to 3 notification icons are displayed in the status bar.
A dot icon appears to alert you to notifications from other apps.
#2. Number of notifications only
This notification icon style allows you to hide the notification icons in the status bar as shown above.
Instead, the number of notifications is displayed. Multiple notifications from the same app are considered one. In other words, the number is the number of notification icons if they are all displayed.
#3. All notices
In this mode, all notification icons are displayed.
But the space for notification icons is limited to the left side of the camera hole. If there is not enough space for all notification icons, a dot icon will be used last to let you know there are more notification icons.
#4. Disable notification icons in status bar
In this mode, there are no notification icons in the status bar.
Time cannot be disabled from the status bar.
Please note that customizing the notification icon style does NOT affect your notification settings or notifications in the notification shade.
For example, if you customize the style of the notification icon in mode 4 (disable notification icons), notifications are always displayed in the notification panel, unless you disable notifications for this application.
Another way to customize the style of the notification icon in the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar
You can also use the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 quick settings to access the status bar options.
You can access quick settings by swiping down twice from the status bar or by swiping down once with two fingers.
As shown in the screenshot below, press the menu key (3 vertical dots).
From the context menu, you can tap Status bar as shown above to access the same status bar option to customize the style of notification icons on the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar.
What do the notification icons mean in the Galaxy S20, S21, S22?
Normally each notification icon (not the status icon) has one or more corresponding notifications in the notification panel. For example, when you activate do not disturb mode, you see this notification icon.
You can find the corresponding notification there. For example, as mentioned in this post, when you insert a USB drive, there will always be a notification.
In fact, an individual developer can use whatever they want as the notification icon for their apps. Thus, it is usually difficult to guess the corresponding app based on the notification icon, unless it is a pre-installed Samsung or Google app.
You can check this page about the meaning of system app notification icons and the meaning of status icons.
Conclusion
Can we customize the style of the notification icons in the Galaxy S20, S21, S22 status bar on the Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra? Do you have any questions about notification icons on the Galaxy S20, S21, S22?
If you have any questions on how to customize the style of notification icons in the Galaxy S20 status bar on the Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra, please let us know in the comment box below.