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Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches

Jun 20, 2018 06:31 PM
Jun 21, 2018 02:32 PM
Person holding a smartphone outdoors with flowers in the background.

Samsung has made curved displays a signature element of their flagship phones, but the Edge Screen, as it's called, has proven to be a magnet for accidental touches. Fortunately, Samsung has developed a little known app to help prevent this problem.

The app — aptly named EdgeTouch — lets you customize the palm rejection software on your Galaxy device so that the curved edges will completely stop registering accidental touches. You don't need to be rooted to use this app, you just need to be running Android Nougat or Oreo on any Samsung phone with curved edges like the Galaxy S7, S8, S9, or Note 8.

Install EdgeTouch

To get the ball rolling, open the "Galaxy Apps" app that you'll find in your app drawer. From there, search "EdgeTouch" and choose the top result, then tap "Install."

Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
App overview for EdgeTools, including screenshots and download information.
Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
App overview for EdgeTools, including screenshots and download information.

Create a Custom Touch Rejection Profile

Next, open EdgeTouch and grant it storage permission by tapping "Allow" on the popup. By default, the app is set to "Optimized," and by selecting "Show Edge Zone" on the bottom, you can view the current setting. The yellow lines denote the zones where touch input won't register at all, while the green bands mark the areas where the touch won't register when gripping or holding your phone.

Feel free to play around with your phone with this setting on to better understand the edge zones, then go back to EdgeTouch and tap on "Show Edge Zones" once more to exit the preview mode. Tap on "Add Edge Zone" once you're done to create your custom touch rejection profile.

Permission prompt for accessing photos, media, and files on a device in Edge Touch application.
Edge Touch settings interface on a mobile device.
Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
Permission prompt for accessing photos, media, and files on a device in Edge Touch application.
Edge Touch settings interface on a mobile device.
Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches

Now, adjust the yellow bands within the "Blocked Zone" page by dragging the bars — remember, this will prevent accidental touches from occurring at all. Hit "Next" once you're satisfied, then do the same when setting the green bands within "Grip Zone" for improved palm rejection.

After that, you'll need to repeat the process for landscape mode, so set those up according to your liking and tap on "Done" once completed. Now, enter your custom profile's name to complete the setup, then hit "OK." Your custom profile will now be available within the app's main page.

Upon tapping on your custom profile, a prompt may appear informing you to revert back to the "Optimized" profile if you ever decide to uninstall the app, so read it carefully and hit "OK" to confirm. You're now free to exit the app and go about the rest of your day.

Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
Settings interface for Edge Touch feature on a smartphone.
Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
Settings interface for Edge Touch feature on a smartphone.

As you can see from the following GIFs, the difference is startling. With a customized profile enabled within Edge Touch, unintentional touches along the edge of your Galaxy's display have become a thing of the past. So you can go about watching videos on YouTube, and never worry about accidentally switching to another video while gripping your device.

Without Edge Touch

With a custom profile enabled in Edge Touch

Without Edge Touch

With a custom profile enabled in Edge Touch

Cover image and screenshots by Amboy Manalo/Gadget Hacks

The next big software update for iPhone is coming sometime in April and will include a Food section in Apple News+, an easy-to-miss new Ambient Music app, Priority Notifications thanks to Apple Intelligence, and updates to apps like Mail, Photos, Podcasts, and Safari. See what else is coming to your iPhone with the iOS 18.4 update.

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