Over the years, mobile operating systems have tended to offer us more and more functions and making access to them easier and easier. Carry out actions in less time It is a dogma of mobile productivity in these times and, in relation to it, we find contextual menus that are not yet known by everyone.
8 years ago, with the iPhone 6s, the possibility of obtaining shortcuts by long pressing on the icon of an app or a menu began to be extended to Android. This gesture has evolved so much in Android, that can even be customized thanks to some launchers.
Avoid getting lost in endless menus and save time
The Action Shortcutssimply translated as shortcuts, are the own system that Android offers the user to be able to have quick shortcuts to some functions on app icons. To do this, you simply must have Android 7.1 or a later version.
If you meet that requirement, you just have to press and hold an app icon to open a contextual menu in which the quick options of said app are given. For example, in the case of Chrome you can open a new normal or incognito tab directly. In WhatsApp you can access recent recent chats.
It can be said that these gestures also offer other options like having a preview of the content of a page or messages. For example, in Telegram you can press and hold a contact’s photo in the chat panel and view the conversation without having to enter and leave a trace that the messages have been read.
Customize shortcuts to your liking
Although the shortcuts obtained in each app may vary depending on the version of Android or the app itself, the truth is that other shortcuts can be configured to our liking. Not natively, unfortunately, although it is very simple thanks to the combination of apps like Nova Launcher and Sesame Shortcuts.
In the case of launcher, to say that other applications could be useful, but that Nova is the simplest and most attractive one due to the rest of the functions they offer. Returning to the Sesame Shortcuts app, in it you will find the possibility of to create app shortcuts with custom functions such as directly opening a Spotify playlist or accessing a certain email label in Gmail.
And how are they personalized? Well, despite the fact that it seems complex due to the number of options in the app, it is very simple if you follow these steps:
- While in Nova Launcher, open the Sesame Shortcuts app.
- Using the search engine at the top, search for the app in question for which you want to create new shortcuts.
- Make a long press on the app to open its context menu and click on Shortcut Options.
- Select and configure the shortcuts you want to create. You can also remove the ones that already come by default.
- Exit this menu and press the app icon again and this time choose the option add to start.
Now there is several drawbacks in this app. The first one you will see right away is that the icons of the custom apps will also have the Sesame symbol at the bottom and there is no way to remove it. Similarly, many apps are not updated to work with these types of apps.
In any case, it usually works with many apps and is a good way to squeeze even more shortcuts per tap. Logically, you won’t be able to create functions that don’t already integrate these apps as standard, but they will undoubtedly save you interesting time if you access them frequently, avoiding having to open the app, search for said action and access it.
