When Android 12 was released, it brought a new “one-handed mode” for Pixel phones. Like Apple’s Accessibility feature, the one-handed mode adds a gesture that lets users pull the top half of the screen down, making it easier to reach.
The feature is handy for smartphones with large screens, as it can be difficult to reach items at the top of the screen with one hand – for example, on my Pixel 6, I can reach maybe the bottom third of the display with my thumb.
While useful, I recently discovered that Google expanded the one-handed mode to include an option to open the notification panel with the same gesture. As far as I can tell, this feature isn’t new — judging by articles I’ve found covering one-handed mode, it looks like Google added it sometime between December 2021 and February 2022 — but it’s new to me and I thought it was worth sharing in case anyone else didn’t know about it.
As useful as the one-handed mode was, I didn’t feel like it solved my main problem. Whenever I needed something at the top of my phone screen, it was almost always a notification. But now that I can use the one-handed mode gesture to open the notification panel, it’s a game changer.
With the gesture enabled, you can quickly open the notification panel by swiping down on the gesture line (or as Google actually calls it) at the bottom of the screen.
If you want to switch to this method, go to Settings> System> Gestures> One-handed mode and tap on “Show notifications”. You’ll also need to enable the Use one-handed mode toggle if it hasn’t already. Finally, it’s worth noting that some or all of these settings may look different on non-Pixel Android phones, as with many manufacturers including their own approaches to one-handed modes.
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