The Android drop-down menu with quick buttons can be modified with your choice of controls and preferred Settings
The Android drop-down menu allows you to access some quick system functions without having to open the Settings app every time. This menu allows you to control Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the data network connection, as well as offering buttons to turn on or off other interesting functions.
In the following guide we will show you how to expand android quick options menuhow to access it even with the screen locked, how to customize the menu with new action keys (choosing favorites and removing useless or superfluous buttons) and finally how to restore the menu to its initial settings.
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1) Open Android drop-down menu
The Android drop-down menu is very simple to open: we swipe from the center of the top edge to the center of the screen to show the first quick buttons (usually Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Silent and cellular data); on some phones the shortcut keys are accessible by dragging down only the upper right corner.
To view all the function keys provided by our system it is necessary to scroll from right to left in the drop-down menu, so as to be able to also choose the keys that are not normally visible.
There are some on Xiaomi phones fixed function keys (Wi-Fi, data network connection, brightness and volume), with the possibility of scrolling through the two rows of function keys present immediately below; the only ones that can be customized are the keys in the two rows, since the fixed keys are too important for the phone.
2) Access quick settings even when the screen is locked
Typically the drop-down menu function keys are not available when the phone is booted into the lock screen, but we can change this behavior on most Android phones.
To proceed we open the app Settingswe press on Notifications and Control Center (or similar menu), let’s press on Items on the lock screen when you swipe down and let’s make sure that the voice Notification area is active.
3) Add or remove quick actions
To customize the quick actions present in the drop-down menu we can use the Android settings, so you can adapt the keys to what we really need or what is best to always keep within reach.
To change the style of the drop-down menu we can take us to the path Settings -> Notifications and Control Center -> Control Center Style and choose the style we like best.
If, however, we wanted to change the position of the individual actions, add new ones or remove those that we never use, all we have to do is expand the drop-down menu, press on the edit icon at the top right and change the orientation of the function keys, using green icons to add new features and red icons to remove features we’ve never used.
Many third-party apps add function keys for the drop-down menu: after installing an app we recommend that you always check the function key changes menu to find out if the last app installed allows you to access a certain function (as in the case of Bitwardenwhich includes a function key to quickly access the password vault and a key to automatically fill login fields within an app).
4) Restore the default quick actions
On some Android phones we can restore the function keys present in the drop-down menuso as to return to the system’s default keys without having to go crazy remembering how they were arranged.
If our phone allows it, we can restore quick actions by opening the edit menu of the drop-down menu and pressing the button below Restore. Not all phones and not all notification styles allow you to restore icons: it is better to find out before choosing which icons to remove and which icons to keep.
Conclusions
The Android drop-down menu can become much more than just a menu, replacing the Settings app and most of the widgets available on Android: in fact it becomes completely similar to the Control Center seen on iPhones, where we can access many useful functions without opening the Settings app or one of the apps compatible with the screen.
To learn more we can read our guides on how to add shortcuts on Android to open quick tasks from Home and on best apps to trigger automatic actions on Android.
