During a review of the Galaxy S21 where I explained why I would not stick to Samsung’s latest phone and would rather return to the Pixel 5, I pointed out that one of the little things that irritates me is the removal of an animation function in One UI 3.1. This was specifically the “Reduce animations” option in the Advanced Features section of Samsung’s UI, an option that was already available in a few versions and has only just been removed.
For those unfamiliar with the option, just understand that it was a simple switch in an easily accessible area that showed off the extravagant animations of One UI. I loved it because it was as if Samsung realized how excessive the animation scale was in their software, and made it very easy to switch things back.
Many in that article quickly pointed out that there are alternative options for this, including the “Remove Animations” switch in Accessibility, as well as window scaling adjustments that can be made in developer options. I was well aware of both for years, but the reason for the complaint was that Samsung took away a simple solution while switching to One UI 3.1, especially in the notification screen, where it feels like it needs a full 5 . seconds for a downward swipe to complete and show pending notifications.
Therefore, because I want you all to abandon the transition and animation times, we need to make sure that everyone is aware of changes in the scale of animations. Seriously, your Samsung Galaxy phone will instantly feel faster in almost everything you do once you adjust this setting. And since the Galaxy S21, as well as the Galaxy S20, Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Z Fold 2, are now running One UI 3.1, it affects a lot of you.
Accelerate Galaxy S21, S20, Note 20
- Go to Settings> About Phone> Software Information
- Find the build number and tap it a few times until it says “Developer Mode Enabled” at the bottom of the screen. You should see a countdown if this happens.
- Now make a backup of two screens in Settings and you should see ‘Developer Options’ as a new option under ‘About Phone’.
- Tap developer options and scroll down until you find the labeled options: window animation scale, transition animation scale, and animation duration scale.
- They all need to be on an animation scale of 1x, so you want to reduce by tapping on each one and selecting a new scale. For me, I switch all three to .5x.
- You can switch to ‘Animation out’, but I always feel you need eyes some animation or it can be a bit shocking to navigate on a device. If there are no animations at all, things happen almost too fast.
- And that’s it!
When you complete the short set of instructions, your phone will feel faster when you open a folder, exit an app, and yes, scroll to the bottom of the notification area. The most important setting there is the “animator duration scale”. If you set it to 2x or higher, you will see how slowly things happen. Then drop it again to 0.5x or lower, and everything will open and close without waiting.