All smartphones have dozens, maybe hundreds, of settings that customize the way your phone works. For example, does your phone’s screen go black when you don’t want it to? If you’re writing an email and you take a minute to think about what you want to say, your phone thinks it’s time to go to sleep and your screen goes dark just as you’re about to type the next word. That’s aggravating, right? Well, there’s a setting for that. On Android phones it’s called Screen Timeout. On iPhones it’s called AutoLock. Yours may be set to 30 seconds, which means you don’t get much time to think before the screen goes black! You can change it to something more reasonable, like 1 or 2 minutes – IF you can find it.

How to get to settings

Once you get there, I encourage you to scroll around, check out all the possible settings. You’ll learn a lot. But if you’re looking for one particular setting, it may take a while because there are a LOT of settings.

Use Search

Once you get into the Settings for your phone, you will see a Search option at the top of the screen.

How to Search for Settings on Android	How to Search for Settings on iPhone

There is a basic difference between how iOS and Android handle settings for specific apps. With iPhone, in general, you open the system settings, then find the specific app and its settings are there. On Android, generally, you open the app, then find the settings for that app in a menu, usually indicated with a gear icon.

To learn more about settings, see Episode 162 of our YouTube show, What Does This Button Do?