Suggested apps on your Pixel can be of great help, but sometimes you’d rather not show all of your cards.
There aren’t many things as versatile as smartphones nowadays. They are small, pocketable devices that can take great pics, connect us to people around the world, get some work done, or let you unwind and relax with a game or a movie – all in the palm of your hand.
Thanks to the magnificent hardware, many of these functions are there, but smartphones wouldn’t be where they are now without all the available apps. You can find everything you’d ever need among the millions of available applications – software for your smart home, games, workout apps, banking apps, social media, and everything in between.
However, these apps might also be a bit of a curse. You often need to have quite a lot of them – a few of them to operate your smart home devices from different brands, some banking apps, streaming services, games, workout apps, etc. Therefore, your phone becomes cluttered, and you can hardly find an app that you need in your overfilled app drawer.
What is Google Pixel’s app suggestion feature?
Google’s Pixel phones have a solution to this clutter. If you turn on the app suggestions feature, they can show you the apps that you use most at certain times at the top of your app drawer or even in a special row on your home screen. It’s a convenient way always to have your favorite apps handy.
These suggestions are based on your activity throughout the day. This means you can expect your phone to suggest your workout apps when you normally go to the gym, your streaming apps when you wind down in the evening, and your office apps when you normally work. It’s all quite seamless and makes all the necessary apps instantly available.
As I’ve mentioned, another cool thing about that feature is that it allows you to have your suggested apps available in two places. One is the top of your app drawer – when you open the drawer, you have four apps chosen for you and ready to go. Another place is the bottom row of apps on your home screen. This used to be reserved for your favorite apps, but now you can also keep suggested apps there, making this row much more versatile. They are also marked with a special ring around them, so you know which apps will change and which are there to stay.
Should you turn the app suggestions on?
App suggestions are undoubtedly useful. They allow you to have quick access to your apps without making a mess of your home screen – you usually can just rely on your phone to suggest the correct app when you need it, provided you have quite a regular schedule.
However, such a feature also has its drawbacks. First, the bottom row with your five most used apps is somewhat of a staple of Android – at least the Pixel flavor – so swapping it for the suggested apps’ row might be quite a big leap for some people – I know it is for me.
The second drawback is connected exactly to the apps people use. Sometimes, you regularly use apps that you wouldn’t want others to see, so appearing at your phone’s home screen might not be a good idea. Whether it’s an app for an adult toy, a late-night streaming service, or just a gambling app that you’d prefer not to show to everybody – these might still spear in the suggested apps’ row and make for quite an embarrassing find for some stranger’s eyes.
You can always just go halfway – turning the feature on for the app drawer and leaving it off for the home screen seems to be an option with no downsides, so that might be the way to go if you don’t want to part with the standard home screen look.
Of course, you can also just block some of the apps from appearing in the suggestion box. That’s the route that all of the suggestion-lovers should take. You can keep your suggested apps bar in just a few clicks without fearing showing just a bit too much to someone who picks up your phone.
How to turn off suggested apps on a Google Pixel?
So, if you’ve been dealing with suggested apps on your Pixel phone and want to turn that feature off, here’s what you need to do:
- Long press on an empty space on your Pixel’s home screen.
- In the pop-up menu that appears, choose the Home Settings option.
- Go down the list and choose the Suggestions menu.
- Once here, you’ll see two suggestion sliders.
- Turn off Suggestions in all apps list to turn off app suggestions in the app drawer.
- Turn off Suggestions on the Home screen to turn off suggestions in the bottom bar on your home screen.
How to block apps from appearing in the suggested apps bar?
If you want to keep your suggested apps bar but you’d rather some apps didn’t make their way there, there’s a simple way out. Here’s what you need to do:
- Long press on an empty space on your Pixel’s home screen
- In the pop-up menu that appears, choose the Home Settings option.
- Go down the list and choose the Suggestions menu.
- Once there, scroll past the suggestions sliders and tap on the Blocked apps menu.
- You’ll see a list of all the apps on your phone. Simply choose which of them should not appear in the suggestions bar.
- Once you’re done choosing, simply click Save in the upper right corner.
How to turn on suggested apps
If this article made you think that suggested apps are convenient and useful for you, great! Here’s how to turn that feature on and start saving time:
- Long press on an empty space on your Pixel’s home screen.
- In the pop-up menu that appears, choose the Home Settings option.
- Go down the list and choose the Suggestions menu.
- Once here, you’ll see two suggestions sliders. Turn them both on if you want suggestions in the app drawer and on the home screen or just choose the one that’s more convenient for you.