Android

Unlock more screen space on Android with this setting

Learn how to increase the amount of visible information on your Android device beyond what's normally possible with a hidden setting in the developer options. Discover how to unlock more screen real estate with this simple guide.

Image by Jonathan Kemper

I like to get as much on my screen as possible so I always crank up resolution scale as much as possible. Since Android version 7 this is possible out of the box. But what if the maximum text you can display is still not enough for you?

Using the built in developer options you can display even more on your android device, turning your smartphone into a phablet.

This becomes especially handy when you want to use multiple apps at once.

Enable developer options

To increase your "screen resolution" beyond what's supported out of the box, you'll have to enable developer options. This can be done through the settings of your android phone.

Change the setting

After you successfully enabled the developer options. Enter the developer options through your settings menu.

From there, scroll down all the way to minimum width. First make a screenshot to remember your original value, mine was 411, in case you ever want to go back. Then switch the value to something higher. The higher the value, the smaller the items on the screen - I went with 500.

Potential issues

At some point the buttons become too small to touch with your fingers. With the value of 500 this is still doable in my case but your mileage may vary. There are however two cases where I had to make tweaks to keep it usable. These were the keyboard and my launcher.

Keyboard keys are too small

I'm using Googles Keyboard called Gboard on my Samsung phone. Luckily there's a setting to increase the size of the buttons to compensate for the shrunken down ui. To fix it, do the following:

Open anything that uses the keyboard
Long press on the comma to enter the settings
Tap on "Preferences"
Tap on "Keyboard height"
Set it to "Extra tall"

Launcher icons too small

By setting the minimum widthAttribute, there will be considerable spacing on your launcher. In my case I'm using Nova Launcher which can be tweaked to display the icons larger which again compensates for our increase of the minimum width. To fix the spacing, do the following: