Samsung Phone’s Notification Icons On Top of the Screen, What Do They Means?

Notification Icon of Samsung (One UI) Smartphone

Are you wondering what some of those weird icons appeared on your Samsung smartphone? We are here to help you out by providing you the latest Samsung (One UI) Smartphone’s user manual with a list of symbols that you are clueless about at the notification bar on top of your screen next to the time, date, signal bar and battery indicator.

The icons of the notification bar are what you often see and are quite familiar such as signal bars (2G, 3G, 4G, H, H+, 4G, 4G LTE, 5G and 5G LTE), missed calls, new messages, downloads in progress, GPS, or app updates.

But, there are some common notification icons or symbols you may want to know more about, so you can refer to below to understand what it really means.

Here are some other weird icons you could have noticed which rarely showed up, and even the younger generation would sometimes not understand what it really means. You could be asking, “What does the lightning bolt with the arrow icon mean?”, “What does the circle with plus sign icon means?” or “What does the ‘N’ shape icon mean?”

Data Saver (circle with plus sign in middle) icon

This circle plus sign could be pretty unfamiliar, but if you accidentally turned it on, this is Samsung’s Data Saver feature to restrict the data usage by disallowing some apps from sending and receiving data in the background if any. If you are seeing a Facebook page’s photo is not loading, that is due to this Data Saver function restricting it.

To turn off this Data Saver feature, you can go to Settings > Connections > Data usage > Data Saver > and select to turn it off. As you turn it off, this little icon will disappear. You should be aware that this feature is to disallow your phone from consuming more data than before, so take note of your monthly data plan and usage.

NFC (‘N’ shape) icon

Since this ‘N’ shape icon is not often seen in various phones, you probably are confused about what it is. This ‘N’ shape icon is actually a NFC, Near Field Communication feature, that is usually used by apps or services using the NFC feature to quickly pair bluetooth accessories like speakers. Also you can use NFC on your mobile phone to make payments with Samsung Pay or Google play.

GPS navigation (bull’s-eye shape) icon

If you see a bull’s-eye shape on your notification bar, you should worry less, because it just means GPS is turned on whereby your apps such as Google maps or navigation is using the GPS currently.

Roaming (‘R’ letter) signal icon

This ‘R’ sign shown on your signal bar means your phone is currently getting no signal from your network provider, however it found services from another network provider, so the Roaming is connected there. Please take note that Roaming service always incurred charges that can get pretty expensive, so be alert if and you should know when you see this ‘R’ in your signal bar.

Airplane Mode (Airplane shape) icon:

This airplane mode icon means when you turn it on, you will have no more signal, WIFI or Bluetooth connection when you see this icon appear on top of your signal bar. This airplane mode is often used when you are in the flight.

Do-Not-Disturb mode (Circle with line in middle) icon:

As for what this Do-Not-Disturb icon means when it is turned on, you will not get any notification whether it is from apps or messages, and other notifications.

You can easily turn Do-Not-Disturb mode by pulling down the notification bar, and find the symbol to tap it once to turn off.

Samsung Blue Light Filter

Displays of devices will emit blue light at night time where we expose them. This will restrict our eyes production of melatonin and affects you getting awake and alert, when you should be in deep sleep.
For this reason, it is very important to use this blue light filter during sunset to avoid you from being disrupted by sleep cycles and insomnia.

Samsung: Link To Windows

Link to Windows is also similar to Microsoft’s “Your Phone” application, which allows you to make calls, receive and send text messages, see notifications and be able to access your recent photos just from your desktop without cable.
This feature also allows you to mirror your Samsung Galaxy’s Phone screen on your PC by enjoying full access to your phone apps from your computer. This feature can be easily accessible from your notification panel.

Scan QR Code

It has been very difficult thinking why not all smartphones should be pre-installed with this QR Code app? Within Samsung Galaxy phones, you are getting this “Scan QR Code” feature just inside the notification panel. This Samsung’s QR Code reader was built to use with its camera apps just like iPhones, that allows you to scan any QR code by simply aiming with your phone and resulting with an appearing pop-up of information from the code scanned.

Smart View

This “Smart View” feature allows you to enjoy multimedia content from your mobile and PC on your Samsung’s smart TV. You can access the content stored on your phone or PC and also be able to control your TV with your phone easily.

Samsung Dex / Samsung Wireless Dex

By clicking this feature on your Samsung phone, you can turn your Smart TV into desktop mode when connected from your phone wirelessly. Basically you turn your Smart TV into a PC desktop view by controlling through your phone. You can open any apps in a scalable window. You can multitask with many apps on the TV and it is much easier to use on a big screen. You can even turn your phone into a mouse pad or keypad when needed. It is best used with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse for much convenience.

Nearby Share

We frequently send files to nearby phone users by texting or emailing them, but now you can use this “Nearby Share” feature in the notification panel to share content with other Android phones. If you happen to not be able share files to anyone nearby, then you can also share with anyone inside your contact list easily.

Secure Folder

By turning on this Secure Folder feature in your Samsung phone, the feature of defense grade from Samsung Knox security platform to create a private, encrypted space on your Samsung Galaxy phone where your important confidential apps and data can be moved to the Secure Folder which are safely sandboxed separately on the devices and protected by another layer of security and privacy. You are living in a fast pace of advancing technology world, so you should protect your own data safely by using this Secure Folder feature.

Always On Display

This is Always On Display (AOD) is pretty much a new name for screensaver for smartphones. When you turn on this feature, your Galaxy phone can view time, date, missed calls, more notifications, and much more even when your phone screen is turned off. Thanks to this One UI interface, you can check your phone’s status without having to turn on the display that often.

Screen Recorder

It is quite an important feature for some phone users who would like to record their own screen. Now with this Screen Recorder feature found in your Galaxy phones, you can easily turn it on to make a screen recording video without having to install a third party app. Just tap the icon in your notification panel, and count down for 3 seconds where your recording will start.

Sync

Android phones come with this “Sync” feature that you can easily synchronize your contact, documents, and other information saved to be inside Google. This is pretty useful when you would like to change to a new phone whereby all the important contacts and informations will be automatically restored in the new phone.

Edge Lighting

Edge lighting is a feature of notifying you when received notification or calls by lighting up the edge of your screen. You can adjust the color of the edge lighting based on contacts to identify their respective colors.

Music Share

Music Share is a new feature to share the bluetooth speaker, headphone, earbud or music devices that your phone has connected to another Samsung Phone such as your partner, friends or family who would want to. This also reduces the need to pair and unpair your bluetooth devices making it time taking from eventually.

For example, your friend who would like to play your bluetooth speaker your phone has paired with, upon turning on this Music Share feature can allow your friend to play music directly to the bluetooth speaker of yours. Still both users have to be using a Samsung smartphone to perform this Music Share feature.

Dolby Atmos

Dolby Atmos was available on Samsung premium phones, which allows you to enable it for enhancing a greater cinema-quality of surround sound. You can adjust the setting for Dolby Atmos either on Auto, Movie, Music, or Voice for best optimal sound quality.

S Pen Air actions

S Pen was included in the Galaxy line of Samsung smartphones. By turning this S Pen Air actions feature on, you can use your S Pen button on the side to press for functions like taking photos, especially selfies. This feature also additionally allows your S Pen to perform an Air gesture to make your phone act without touching it. Though it may sound like carrying a Harry Potter’s wand, you can just check the function inside the S Pen Air action’s setting on how to maneuver the S Pen like a wizard.

Samsung Kids

It is understandable that sometimes we may let our child have some fun times with our phones, but it can be havoc if your children accidentally or mistakenly changed your phone’s setting, deleted some files etc to begin with. Now you can protect your phone from your child by using the “Samsung Kids” feature to set control permissions, playtime limit, and provide usage report so that you know what your child is learning. For other devices with Android version 9,0 is compatible to download this Kids app.

Quick Share

Quick share feature is available in android smartphones where you can quickly share your photos, videos, and files to your friends and family easily. You can share to the person who has turned on the quick share, and they have to accept it on their phone upon receiving and complete the process. It is very easy if you want to send files to a group of people at once.

Call & Text on other devices

When you turn on this “Call & Text on other devices”, you can make calls and send messages on devices other than your current phone, which you are required to add the same Samsung account to both the phones or tablet. This feature is pretty convenient of you have another 2nd smartphone or you want to connect to your tablet for much flexible or interconnected contact to not miss.

Dark Mode

By turning on Dark Mode, you can change the color of background of your phone’s apps from normal white background to black background, which helps you to reduce eye strain especially when reading the tiny words, also black screen consumes less power so your battery life can last longer. You can now even schedule for Dark mode which is also great if you prefer to customize light mode for day time, and dark mode for night time only.

Focus Mode

This new feature “Focus Mode” is a new digital detox that helps promote digital well-being tools on android. You can pause certain apps temporarily, while focusing on getting tasks done on hand efficiently. This helps the majority of phone users to get their job done on their phone by not falling into the scrolling loop.

Download Booster (lightning bolt with arrow) icon:

We often asked about what this lightning bolt icon or symbol means in the Samsung phones. This lightning bolt with an arrow icon indicates a feature known as a Download Booster.

When turned on this Download Booster feature, you get a combination of 4G LTE and WIFI for the fastest available speed while downloading a file. This special feature was basically combined your phone’s connection and home’s WIFI for faster download speed experience. If you accidentally turned it on, you can turn it off by going to Settings > Connections > More Connection Settings > and uncheck the Download Booster.

I did not found the weird notifications icons here and what should I do?

If there are some notification icons that we have not shown here, probably they are other brand of smartphones. However if you are having difficulty to find the meanings of notification icons appearing, you can screenshot your smartphone and crop the notification icon in the comment bar below to seek our help. We will help you to find out what is the weird notification icons you found on your phone.

How To Limit The Notification Bar Icons?

To limit the notification bar icons, you probably dislike the messy crowded looking of the icons appearing and even couldn’t keep track what is behind now. You can limit the notification icons by going to Settings > Display > Status Bar > and select to “show recent notification only”. The latest setting can be adjust from Settings > Notification > Status Bar > select “3 most recent”.

Are you now the expert of Samsung smartphone about notification icons? Pretty so because you perhaps has already understand all the notification icons list here and you can share this post to let others to know more too. We would like to nourish your knowledge if you are using a Samsung smartphone, by checking out the Top Samsung Smartphone Tricks and Secret revealed here.