10 things to set up and change first on your new Galaxy Z Fold 8

So, you have just got your Galaxy Z Fold 8 and want to know what you should do first. We are not talking about the usual steps like transferring your data, signing into accounts, or changing basic display settings.

These are settings and features that specifically help you take advantage of the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s form factor. Here's what you should check out and enable once you've finished the initial setup on your new phone.

Open the phone, head into the Settings app, select Advanced features, and then tap Labs. Inside, you will find the Landscape view for portrait apps option.

This feature forces apps that normally support only portrait orientation to display in landscape when the phone is held horizontally. This is useful because the unfolded Galaxy Z Fold 8 is naturally designed to be used in this orientation, but some apps will automatically rotate into portrait and prevent you from using the full display properly.

The Domino’s app is one example. With the setting disabled, the app launches in portrait because that is its natural orientation, and that's an extra step for you as you have unfold the phone and then rotate it before you can use the app. Enable Landscape view for portrait apps, select Domino’s, and the app will launch in landscape instead.

You should enable this option for any app that does not natively support the Fold 8’s horizontal orientation.

With One UI 9, Samsung allows the home screen dock to display recent or suggested apps alongside the apps you have added manually. These apps are separated from your regular dock apps by a divider.

Pinch the home screen and tap the Settings button to open the home screen settings and select Recent or suggested apps. You can either show or hide them and choose to display two, three, or four apps.

When enabled, the dock will show the apps you have used recently. If you do not have enough recent apps, the phone will suggest apps that you may want to open next.

This area is particularly important on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 because it also forms the basis of the taskbar that appears when you open an app.

Go to Settings > Display > Taskbar menu. Make sure the taskbar is enabled if you want to use it.

As with the home screen dock, the taskbar can display two, three, or four recent or suggested apps. You can also choose between two taskbar styles.

The Auto hide when apps are opened option hides the taskbar until you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. The Stay on screen option keeps it permanently visible whenever an app is open.

Keeping the taskbar on the screen makes it much quicker to switch between apps, as you do not have to swipe up every time you need it. It also gives you faster access to the app drawer.

It's especially useful if you're using navigation gestures instead of buttons on your phone, as swiping up from the bottom of the screen to bring up the taskbar can accidentally trigger the gesture for going to the home screen.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 can display Google Search and Samsung Finder permanently at the bottom of the home screen.

Open the home screen settings and select Show search on Home screen. You can then enable Google Search, Samsung Finder, or both.

Google Search lets you search the web, while Finder lets you search for apps and other content stored on your phone.

You can have both options visible, enable only one, or disable both. When they are disabled, the space is replaced by the regular home screen page indicator.

Open Settings, go to Galaxy AI, select Call assist, and then enable Call Brief.

Call Brief can show events and other relevant information on the call screen while you are speaking to someone. Some additional features need to be enabled for it to work, though most of them should already be active by default. The phone will guide you through enabling anything that is missing.

During a call, Call Brief listens to what is being discussed and surfaces relevant information from your calendar, Gallery, messages, and other areas of the phone. It is a useful concept, so turn it on if you want to use it.

Now Brief provides personalized briefings throughout the day and recommends content based on the time of day and the information available on your phone.

Samsung includes several toggles that determine what information can appear, but those predefined categories may not always be relevant to you. One UI 9 adds a Custom cards section that lets you create your own cards for Now Brief.

You can create up to three custom cards at a time. The available categories include weather, health, and videos.

The health category includes options such as your Energy Score, running activity for the week, and nutrition information. You can select those options or write your own prompt.

For example, you can enter “Show me my sleep and energy scores” and then choose when the card should appear. You could schedule it for 6 a.m., although 9 a.m. may be more useful for a sleep and energy summary.

Now Brief will read and validate the prompt, create the layout, finalize the design, and show you an example of the finished card. In this example, the resulting card combines the sleep score and Energy Score into a single daily health summary.

The sleep score can already appear separately as an automatically generated card, but the custom card lets you combine it with other information.

You can also create custom video recommendation cards. For example, a card can be set up to show Lamine or Messi videos, along with other sports and football-related content.

Existing custom cards can be edited later. You can change the prompt or delete the card entirely.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8’s Camera app includes a Capture View mode that takes advantage of the large internal display.

The toggle appears in the top corner of the camera interface. With Capture View disabled, the screen shows the regular live camera preview. When you enable it, the interface moves the preview to one side of the display and creates a review area on the other.

Every photo you capture appears in this review area immediately. New photos continue to populate the list, and you can swipe up and down to scroll between them.

You can also favorite, share, or delete a photo directly from this view. This is more convenient than repeatedly opening the Gallery preview and then returning to the camera.

Capture View only works when the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is held in landscape orientation. Rotate the phone into portrait and the option disappears.

You should also enable the 24MP photo mode available through Samsung’s Camera Assistant app. It allows you to take advantage of the Fold 8’s two 50MP rear cameras and capture higher-resolution photos by default, but without the big file sizes associated with shooting at the full 50MP resolution.

Open the Camera app, go into its settings, scroll down, and select Camera Assistant. You may need to install Camera Assistant first. If it is not installed, you should see a download icon.

Inside Camera Assistant, scroll down to 24 MP resolution, open it, and enable the 24 MP in Photo mode option. You can then return to the Camera app, open the resolution menu, and select 24M.

The camera will default to 12MP every time you reopen it, but if you want to keep 24MP as the default, enable the Keep 24 MP resolution setting in the 24 MP resolution menu in Camera Assistant.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8’s wide cover screen gives you more horizontal space, but the default home screen layout does not take full advantage of it. The default icons can look too large and leave a lot of the available space unused.

Samsung Home Up, a plugin that's part of the Good Lock app, lets you change this. To get started, install Good Lock from the Play Store or Galaxy Store, open it, switch to the Plugins tab, and install Home Up.

Open Home Up, enable it using the toggle at the top of the screen, tap Home screen, then select Home cover screen grid. The default setting should be 4×4, and you can adjust the number of columns and rows independently up to 7×7.

The adjusted grid immediately makes better use of the display. The scaling looks better, and you can fit more apps across the screen instead of filling it with a few oversized icons. As an example, the gallery below shows the home screen with the default 4×4 setting and at 4×7.

You can make a similar change to the app drawer. Navigate to Home Up > Home screen > Apps list cover column and adjust the number of app list columns for the cover screen. Increasing the number of columns lets the app drawer take better advantage of the Fold 8’s extra width.

Home Up can also be used to customize the home screen grid and app drawer on the internal display, but you first need to disable cover screen mirroring from home screen settings. This allows you to configure the cover screen and internal display independently.

You can then open Home Up while the phone is unfolded and adjust the home screen grid for the internal display. You can also increase the number of visible apps, expand the favorites area, and drag more apps into the dock.