More and more Android smartphone manufacturers are adopting on-screen navigation buttons instead of hardware buttons. The latest Android flagships including the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8 are prime examples of this phenomenon. While I don’t have any issues with the on-screen buttons, it takes away a bit from the beauty of a gorgeous display. Also, some users find its constant presence a bit annoying, especially in certain specific apps. If you are one of these users and are looking for a way to hide them, you are in luck. That’s not all, you can even hide the status bar for a completely immersive mode on your Android smartphone. Well, Here’s how you can enable immersive mode on any non-rooted Android device:
Prerequisites for Enabling “Immersive Mode”
Here are a few things you need to do to get the “Immersive Mode” shortcut in Quick Settings on your Android smartphone:
1. Enabling Developer Options and USB Debugging
This is the easiest part of the tutorial and most of you already know it. For those who haven’t done this before, just follow this path, About Phone-> Build Number and sprinkle it on 5-6 times. This will enable Developer Options. Go now Developer Options and Enable usb debugging”.
2. Installing the ‘Shortcut’ app from the Google Play Store
You will need the Shortcut app to get the immersive mode toggle. This is a free application and Install from Google Play Store.
3. Installing Android Debug Bridge (ADB)
Android Debug Bridge or ‘ADB’ is a command line tool that allows you to interact and control your Android device from your computer. There are several methods of installing ADB for both macOS and Windows. We share the easiest method to install ADB for both platforms:
Installing ADB on Mac
First, open Terminal on your Mac. Now paste the following command and hit return/enter.
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)”:
Now paste the following command. This will install ADB on your Mac.
brew cask install android-platform-tools
Installing ADB on Windows
To install ADB on Windows, go to: Android SDK download page and scroll down. Click on the link shown in the picture and download the zip file. Extract the zip file and run it. .exe file. deselect everything except “Android SDK Platform tools” and then click install. This will install the ADB tool on your PC.
Enabling Immersive Mode at System Scope
- Just to check that everything is ok, turn it on Terminal or Command Prompt and run the following command:
adb devices
2. After running the command, you should see your device uniquely in terminal. alphanumeric code and use the word “device” as in the picture. Now, enter shell mode by typing “adb shell” at the command line and press return/enter.
3. Next, enter the following command to grant the required permission to the Shortcut app.
pm grant com.leedroid.shortcutter android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS
4. When done, disconnect your phone and open the Shortcut app. go inside “Potter Settings” Find the tab and click “Immersive/File Screen Tile” and enable it.
5. Next, In the Quick Settings panel you will find the “Immersive Mode” tile. If you don’t see the icon, click the “Button Row” icon and drag and drop the icon to add it to your Quick Settings panel. Now, whenever you want to enter immersive mode, tap the icon and Choose ‘Full’ in the popup box. And voila, your navigation and status bar will likewise disappear.
You can also choose to hide only the navigation bar or the status bar. When immersive mode is enabled, simply swipe from the bottom or top to see the status bar or navigation bar.
Disable Certain Apps From Using Immersive Mode
There are some apps that don’t play well with “Immersive Mode”. Hangouts is one of them. Sure, we can manually disable immersive mode every time we launch the Hangouts app, but where’s the fun in that. There is a way to disable immersive mode for certain specific apps. We’ll do this for Hangouts here. Connect your phone to your PC or Mac and launch Terminal. Go to ADB shell mode and then run the following command:
settings put global policy_control immersive.full=apps,-com.google.android.talk
Now every time you open Hangouts, immersive mode will be disabled by default. You can exclude any app using this. To do this, then ‘-‘ sign, Change the path to the app you want to disable immersive mode and you’re done.
SEE ALSO: How to Set Custom Navigation Bar Icons on Android (No Root)
Enabling Immersive Mode on Android
On-screen navigation buttons on your Android smartphone can start to bother you a little after a while. Enabling system-wide immersive mode will help you get rid of them until you really need them. You’ll enjoy it the most while surfing your social media feeds or surfing the web. In any case, this is a useful feature. Do you love the immersive mode on your Android smartphone? Tell us all about it in the comment section below.
