How to Hide Soft Keys on Android.?

hide android onscreen keys

Introduction

Many new android phones are released with on screen soft buttons, also known as soft keys or navigation bar which is located at bottom of the screen by the edge. Whether it is google pixel or moto G4 plus, these new phones are developed with the trend of having on screen navigation bar and not the hard one embedded right on the phone. What might be the reason for not having hard buttons, we do not know,  but soft buttons are at times irritating to use, especially if your phone is running with stock android and you need the full screen view. Some apps do automatically hide the soft buttons (like youtube video, and video games), but unfortunately most of the apps do not have this capability (google chrome). However there is a simple way to hide these soft buttons, so they are out of your way for good. If you need to use them, just swipe up from bottom of the screen and they will appear once again on the screen.

To remove the soft keys, this guide uses this app known as Power Toggle which an app on the play store and is free of charge. It has many useful toggles such as full screen toggle,  rotation toggle, brightness toggle,  etc. The best thing about this app is the immersive (full screen mode)  and also the rotation mode which forces to rotate the homescreen to landscape mode when the inbuilt rotation function doesn’t work as intended.

Download

Updated : “Power Toggles” is available at Google PlayStore again. 

You can tap/click here to download the app from the play store. Remember the app has some perks for rooted phones, but you do not need to root your phone for immersive mode and many other commonly used toggles.

Instructions

1. As usual, search for the app with “Power Toggles” query in play store, then touch on the “Install” button to install the app.

Screenshot_20170321-085248
Screenshot_20170321-085252

2. After the app is installed, open the app

open power toggles

3. Get back to home screen and go to widgets (touch and hold on any space on the home screen or open the app drawer and go to widgets)

widget options
select power toggle widget
4. Touch and hold the “Power Toggles 3×1”, The app will automatically open itself and allow you to customise your widget.

unwanted toggles

5. Remove all the toggles you do not want and then tap on add toggles.

remove toggles
select add toggles

6. Here you can add any toggle you want, but make sure to add the IMMERSIVE MODE toggle which allows you to hide the soft buttons.

add toggles

7. Save it and come back to home screen

resize move

8. Touch and hold on widget to resize it as desired.

move the widget

9. Now to use full screen on your phone without the on screen soft keys, simply tap the immersive toggle added with the widget, which makes itself blue and the soft buttons disappear.They will only reappear for a short while when you slide them up from bottom or when you slide your finger down to show the status bar.

immersive mode

The following screenshot shows, how the full screen mode works with Google chrome on Android.

mobile fullscreen

How to Disable The Fullscreen Mode

When you do not want to use immersive mode,  simply tap on the immersive mode toggle again to make it grey, and thereby making the soft buttons to reappear as usual. Alternatively, you can delete the widget by going to the app as seen in the following screenshot

power toggles delete the widget

Remember that, the blue icon represents the option is activated (Step 9), the grey icon represents the option is disabled. Also if you wish to change the toggles again,  go to the app ,tap on home screen option in it ,tap on the widget you created ,and then edit it.

power toggles edit home screen
I hope you find this article helpful. Let us know in the comments below or on the forum if you have any questions.
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5 comments

  1. Avatar

    Only works for one second. 9.0 moto returns it instantly back. I recommend to return to store and buy 6.2 inch with 8.1 android that doesn’t have this nor any other problem. Bought this moto for bigger screen, lol.

  2. Avatar

    This application was removed from they play store.

    1. Avatar

      Sorry for inconvenience. You may still download the app from here
      https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/painless-apps/power-toggles/power-toggles-6-0-4-release/power-toggles-6-0-4-android-apk-download/
      According to their group seen here
      https://plus.google.com/communities/102323355946196101412
      It appears as it’s removed by Google for not updating.

    2. Avatar

      Power Toggle is now available at playstore again. Please check the article again for new updates. Thanks.

  3. Avatar

    hey dude, really amazing post,thanks for sharing

    keep it up friend 🙂

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