An Android shortcut secret
Tap into this treasure trove of time-savers and watch your effectivity soar.
janjf93/Google/JR Raphael
Have I ever talked about how a lot I really like shortcuts?
All proper, perhaps I’ve. (Maybe, erm, someplace within the neighborhood of seven,942 occasions, come to think about it.) But oh, or not it’s true. There’s simply one thing so impossibly satisfying about figuring out you are rising your effectivity and slicing soul-sucking seconds out of your day.
And on Android, whoo boy, have we received some superior alternatives for reducing out steps and reaching Mega-Nerd™ ranges of effectivity obsession.
Today, as your pleasant neighborhood Mega-Nerd™, I need to remind you about an simply ignored possibility for including some additional step-shaving shortcuts instantly onto your house display screen. These shortcuts are buried deep inside a few of Android’s most productivity-oriented apps. And you’d must be — nicely, an efficiency-obsessed Mega-Nerd™ to even notice they’re there.
My good friend, put together to realize Mega-Nerd™ standing.
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Android’s out-of-sight shortcut sorcery
So, here is what’s particularly attention-grabbing concerning the Android shortcuts of which we communicate: They’re nearly similar in kind to the usual Android App Shortcuts system — y’know, that factor the place you’ll be able to press and maintain any app’s icon on your house display screen to disclose a collection of direct hyperlinks to particular features throughout the app — solely with these, you actually must exit of your method to discover ’em.
Those commonplace Android App Shortcuts are spectacular and equally all too straightforward to overlook about. (I’ve received a primer and a bunch of particular ideas right here, should you might do with a refresher.) But those we’re speaking about at this time are much more mysterious.
With particular Android apps, y’see, you’ll be able to create your personal customized shortcuts to particular person objects throughout the app from contained in the app itself.
That stands out as the most complicated sentence I’ve ever written, I notice. But it is a robust idea to convey with out simply strolling by means of a real-world instance — so let’s try this, we could?
This risk tends to be current in productiveness apps the place you are coping with a number of particular person paperwork, recordsdata, or different such objects. So for our first instance, let’s begin with Google Drive.
Open up the Drive app on Android and discover any file and even folder that you just have a tendency to tug up typically out of your telephone. Tap the little three-dot menu icon alongside it, and look intently on the sprawling listing of choices that seems in entrance of your blinking peepers.
Midway down that listing — and also you would possibly even must scroll slightly to see it, relying on the dimensions of your system — it is best to see an innocuous little possibility referred to as “Add to residence display screen.”
JR
Tap that son of a gibbon, and the way ’bout that? You can really add a one-tap shortcut to that precise merchandise proper onto your house display screen for super-speedy, direct entry. That means you may get to it simply, anytime, with out ever having to open up the principle Drive app or do any method of digging.
JR
What’s attention-grabbing is that these identical types of shortcuts will generally present up if you press and maintain the related app’s icon, however most of the time, they will not. That space of the Android interface tends to incorporate a mix of features inside an app together with one or two lately accessed objects. But when there is a particular file or folder you are eyeing, it is as much as you to dive into the precise app and discover it — then discover the choice so as to add it onto your house display screen from there.
And Drive is not the one place the place this puzzling risk exists.
Shortcuts, shortcuts, in all places
Remember how I stated it is largely productiveness apps the place this technique comes up? Maybe it will not shock you, then, that one other Android app that is an ideal place to discover it’s Google Docs.
Open up Docs, faucet the three-dot menu icon subsequent to any doc you’ve got received, and hunt for the “Add to residence display screen” possibility within the panel that seems. (Here particularly, you will nearly actually must scroll down slightly to search out it. Told ya it was hidden!)
Tap that sucker, and shazam: You’ve now received a one-tap shortcut that’ll beam you on to that particular doc — proper from your house display screen.
JR
Doesn’t get a lot simpler than that. And the identical factor is feasible in Microsoft Word on Android, too, by the way in which, if that is your jam.
The idea applies to the spreadsheet entrance as nicely, like within the Google Sheets Android app:
JR
And it is accessible throughout the Google Contacts Android app, too. Just open up any particular person contact there, then faucet the three-dot menu icon within the upper-right nook of the display screen to present your self a fast ‘n’ easy hyperlink to that particular Homo sapien’s hub.
The most outstanding instance — although one which’s nonetheless super-easy to miss and/or overlook about — is Chrome. There, you’ll be able to faucet the three-dot menu icon whereas viewing any particular website so as to add a direct hyperlink to that website onto your house display screen.
And there’s another facet of this technique value contemplating.
Wait — widgets?!
What’s particularly complicated about this setup is that the types of shortcuts we’re speaking about are technically thought of Android widgets — although in actuality, they actually aren’t. They’re shortcuts.
Here’s how I do know: Widgets cannot be stacked. Try to tug one widget on prime of one other, and nothing will occur (apart from discovering your self feeling barely foolish for a second).
With these app-added shortcuts, in distinction, you’ll be able to drag and stack to your coronary heart’s content material. And, actually, that opens up one other attention-grabbing risk: You can create folders of associated shortcuts to present your self a customized productiveness command middle.
JR
That widget miscategorization is essential to remember, although, ‘trigger you will often encounter a shortcut like this that may solely be accessed by means of your telephone’s widget-adding menu — not by means of the app itself.
That’s the case with Gmail, for example. Press and maintain your finger wherever on your house display screen and discover the widget-adding possibility, then discover Gmail within the listing and search for the “Gmail label” merchandise. That’ll allow you to add a one-tap shortcut to any particular label out of your inbox on your house display screen, and similar to the opposite shortcuts we have been constructing, that shortcut can then be mixed with any others right into a folder for maximal group.
The identical is true with Microsoft’s OneDrive app for Android in addition to the Google Maps Android app — which affords up the choice to make a one-tap hyperlink for opening up instructions to any particular vacation spot. You simply must look in that widget-adding menu to search out it.
So use the examples we simply went over as a place to begin after which poke round to see what else you will discover. One factor’s for positive: You’ve received some superior choices for additional effectivity at your fingertips. And now that you have this Mega-Nerd™ information in your noggin, you realize precisely easy methods to uncover ’em and benefit from their potential.
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