23
votes
How to customise status icons in Android 16?
Hullooo, today I got updated to Android 16 by GrapheneOS autoupdater.
I'm 99.5% happy with it as I trust them more than myself with regards to privacy & security, but...
The battery icon in the status bar is invasively ugly and disturbing.
It's too big and it changes colour, makes me shiver!
So... Is there anyway to change that? Most importantly the size (to match the other icons) but also the colour stuff.
Sadly not as far as I can tell. The only slightly relevant option I see is to include battery percent in the status bar (and that is likely from AOSP and not GrapheneOS).
GrapheneOS is focused only on security/privacy, you would have to switch to Lineage or something else for UI customization like that.
Hmm... Well, then, hopefully I'll use my phone less rather than get used to it.
If it gets too bad I might have to try and dig around other distributions apps and see if there is something that can work.
And: thanks <3!
It's just a battery icon....
If you're ok with the status bar not being transparent, there are apps like super status bar (maybe there are better options as well, this is just the one I've seen) that replace the status bar with a custom one that you can customize.
Hmm.... Not a fan of having ad-ridden stuffs that close to the base phone (if that makes sense, probably I'm just drawing a line in imaginary sand!)
Thanks anyway, at least I have more things to search for.
FWIW I hated it when I got the 16 roll out on my pixel, went down the same rabbit hole, found no solution (that I liked). Now I just mildly detest it. So it goes.
Do you mind sharing some things you found anyway?
I can't find the link now, but IIRC there was something that involved the android debugger and some kind of configuration change that wouldn't survive an update. There weren't a ton of options because 16 had just come out.
I also noticed this immediately. I dislike the new icons.
I'm another one who thinks these icons (as it includes also cell and wifi reception symbols) look bad. But there are also changes to the roll-down menu where I can enable DND by just one tap instead of three, so I welcome this specific change.
I guess we have to.cope with such things if we want up-to-date system...? I will, eventually.
Yes, the new way of handling modes is indeed more suited to me. Good point!
To me the new bulky icons are super distracting, like a person looking away distracting, so my own gaze is drawn to them all the time (or towards whatever the person in the comparison is looking at).
I think it would be less distracting if the other icons would be the same "weight" but here we are ;)
But I assume I will get used to it.
I had to search for "enable DND" to understand what DND is, do not disturb apparently.
There are other nice things with the possibility of reducing the quick actions in the roll down menu to a square instead of a big half width button.
So we can finally have more than 4 buttons in the quick first roll down page.
I would have prefered the old 3 buttons by rows in the android 13-14 days (can't remember) but better now than before.
Wow, this is amazing...
Thanks!
It doesn't make up for the horrendous new icons, but it softens the blow :)
I didn't know I can have more than 4 half width things there. Thanks!