I turned my Android phone’s camera notch into a powerful shortcut — and I can’t go back

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Like everyone else, I install a bunch of apps after setting up a new Android phone. Some of these are essentials like Bitwarden and Ente Auth, while others are productivity apps I can’t live without .

It doesn’t end there, though. I also use a few utility apps that are among the first apps to go on my phone. On Pixel phones, it’s the Essentials app , which unlocks a ton of new functionality. And for all the other Android phones I test, I can’t live without Action Notch — a free Android app that helps me get the most out of my phone’s notch.

Almost all Android phones today feature a camera cutout — also called a notch — on the screen for a front-facing camera. Action Notch turns this notch into a virtual button, allowing you to interact with it using tap or swipe gestures to perform various everyday actions efficiently. For instance, you can set up Action Notch such that tapping your phone’s notch once takes a screenshot.

However, that’s not all. Action Notch supports multiple gestures, such as double-tap and long-tap, so you aren’t restricted to just one gesture. Similarly, there are over 50 supported actions to choose from, ranging from something as basic as toggling a flashlight to a slightly more advanced action like running an automated task you created in Tasker or MacroDroid.

You can unlock even more gestures and actions by upgrading to the pro version of Action Notch. This also gives you access to a really useful feature called rule-based actions, which lets you make a single gesture behave differently in different scenarios. For example, you can make the single-tap gesture take a screenshot in one app and toggle the flashlight elsewhere.

I’ve been using Action Notch for many years and have explored multiple use cases over time. My current Action Notch setup involves three gestures: Single Touch , Double Touch , and Long Touch — all of which are available on the free version of the app. Here’s how I’ve configured them:

Single Touch: Although my primary phone is an Android, I also use an iPhone. As a result, I miss a few iPhone features when I’m using an Android phone, and vice versa. One such feature is the ability to scroll to the top of a page by tapping the top of the screen. The Action Notch app lets me achieve similar functionality on any Android phone, thanks to the Scroll to Top gesture. I’ve set up the Single Touch gesture for this action. This way, no matter which app I’m using, I can tap my phone’s notch to go to the top of the page.