This overlooked Samsung Galaxy feature puts accidental taps on pause
It’s happened to us all: we’re doing something on our phone and accidentally tap something we didn’t mean to. Maybe we hit Send before we’re done typing a message, stop a recording too soon, or brush the progress bar and skip forward or backward in a video or song.
Your Galaxy phone has a handy feature called Interaction control that can help. It lets you block touches on the entire screen or just the parts you choose, and you’ll find it in your phone’s accessibility settings.
Choose which parts of the screen respond to touch
Watching a video is a good example of when blocking the whole screen can be useful. Once playback has started, you can enable Interaction control so brushing the display doesn’t pause the video or send you to a different point in it.
You can also be more selective. In a music app, for example, you could block the areas containing the progress bar and the previous and next track buttons while leaving play/pause usable.
That way, you can pause and resume your music without accidentally skipping through a song or switching to another track.
Interaction control also keeps you inside the app where you enabled it. You can’t go to the home screen or switch to another app while it’s active, so it helps prevent accidental navigation as well.
This is different from the Accidental touch protection feature you find in display settings, which helps prevent unwanted touches in dark places like a pocket or bag.
With Interaction control, you decide when and where to block touches while you’re using the phone.
How to use Interaction control on your Galaxy phone
- Open Settings, go to Accessibility → Interaction and dexterity → Interaction control, and enable Interaction control shortcut.
- Tap Interaction control shortcut to choose between pressing the Side and Volume up buttons together or pressing and holding the Volume Up and down buttons for 3 seconds.
- Open the app you want to use. If you’re watching a video, start playback and put the phone in your preferred orientation first.
- Use your chosen button shortcut to open the Set blocked area screen.
- On the app preview, move the blue box over the area you want to block and resize it using its handles. Draw around additional areas to create more boxes, or select Block whole screen to block touches across the entire display.
- If needed, tap Options in the top-right corner to set a time limit or choose which buttons and inputs should remain usable. Then return to the selection screen.
- Tap Done to activate Interaction control.
To turn off Interaction control and restore normal touch controls and navigation, press your chosen button shortcut again.
The Options menu is worth checking before you start. Under Never block actions from, you can allow the Side button, Volume button, or keyboard to keep working.
Allowing the volume buttons is particularly useful when watching videos or listening to music, as you can adjust the volume without turning Interaction control off.
You can also use Time limit to have Interaction control turn off automatically after a period you choose.
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