{"id":862123,"date":"2026-09-27T05:26:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/862123\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T05:26:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:26:34","slug":"5-settings-every-new-android-auto-user-needs-to-change-asap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/862123\/","title":{"rendered":"5 settings every new Android Auto user needs to change ASAP"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year is 2025 — an entire decade since the launch of the first iteration of Android Auto<\/a> — but I’ve only now taken possession of a motor vehicle with the infotainment utility built into it for the very first time. <\/p>\n

Over the years, I’ve had on-again, off-again experience with Apple’s equivalent on-the-road feature, CarPlay<\/a>; to say I’ve been eager to check out Google’s competing vision for an in-car software suite is an understatement. <\/p>\n

Here are five of the very first Android Auto settings I configured the moment I finished connecting my Google Pixel 10<\/a> to my car via Bluetooth. <\/p>\n

To configure each of these Android Auto settings, you’ll first need to head over to Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto on your Android smartphone. Note that some changes require a restart of Android Auto to kick into effect.<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

Adjust startup behaviors<\/p>\n

Make Android Auto an auto-connecting process<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

In my brief experience with Android Auto, the system has been reliably connecting my phone to my vehicle’s built-in display without skipping a beat. That being said, to ensure the smoothest-possible connectivity, I dove into settings and switched the startup behavior from Default (set by the vehicle) to Always.<\/p>\n

I also made sure that Start Android Auto while locked and Start music automatically were both switched on — I primarily listen to playlists and podcasts while out-and-about, and I prefer having my audio start playing as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

To adjust the startup behavior of various aspects of the Android Auto experience, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

Launch Settings.<\/p>\n

Navigate to Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto.<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the Startup subsection.<\/p>\n

Toggle on Start Android Auto while locked.<\/p>\n

Toggle on Start music automatically.<\/p>\n

Tap on Start Android Auto automatically and then select Always from the pop-up menu that appears on-screen.<\/p>\n

Hide message notifications<\/p>\n

Text messages are private — car cabins often aren’t<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

There’s an undeniable satisfaction to having your text messages displayed on-screen or read aloud while in the middle of a drive, but I personally value privacy over convenience. I often drive with passengers (or find myself as the passenger with AUX privilege), and so I opted to switch off the Show first line of messages setting to obfuscate the contents of my chat threads while driving.<\/p>\n

To ensure that your private text messages aren’t read aloud in the presence of passengers, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

Launch Settings.<\/p>\n

Navigate to Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto.<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the Messaging subsection.<\/p>\n

Toggle off Show first line of messages.<\/p>\n

Improve multitasking with the help of an automotive taskbar<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

By default, Android Auto’s taskbar is disabled. While this provides a cleaner UI experience out of the box, I prefer switching on the taskbar as it allows for a smoother multitasking experience. When the taskbar widgets feature is enabled, it adds a strip to the bottom of the in-car infotainment screen with quick controls for active apps, media controls, and more.<\/p>\n

To enable the taskbar widgets experience on Android Auto, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

Launch Settings.<\/p>\n

Navigate to Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto.<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the Display subsection.<\/p>\n

Toggle on Taskbar widgets.<\/p>\n

Customize the launcher<\/p>\n

Rearrange your Android Auto home screen icons<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

When I set up Android Auto for the first time, my in-car launcher screen was populated with several application icons that I had no use for, and everything was organized in alphabetical order. For some users, alphabetic ordering might be ideal, but I personally opted to switch to a manually adjustable (and thus, more flexible) home screen configuration. Once I swapped the Launcher sorting setting from A-Z to Custom order, I was able to populate the top of my Android Auto interface with the apps I use the most on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n

To customize your Android Auto’s launcher interface, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

Launch Settings.<\/p>\n

Navigate to Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto.<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the Display subsection.<\/p>\n

From here, tap on Customize launcher > Launcher sorting.<\/p>\n

Select between A-Z (alphabetical) and Custom order (manual) to organize your applications accordingly.<\/p>\n

Optionally, use the gripper handles on the left-hand side of the screen, as well as the tick boxes on the right-hand side of the screen to enable, disable, and rearrange the order in which apps appear in.<\/p>\n

Enable developer settings<\/p>\n

Unlock additional power-user options for Android Auto<\/p>\n

\"Android<\/p>\n

Much like how the Android operating system itself has a hidden developer options submenu<\/a>, Android Auto too has a secret menu filled with various tweakable settings. Within this section are options to force specific display resolutions, save screenshots and videos of the in-car display, adjust audio codecs, and a grab bag of other utilities. <\/p>\n

To enable developer settings on Android Auto, follow these steps:<\/p>\n

Launch Settings.<\/p>\n

Navigate to Connected devices > Connection preferences > Android Auto.<\/p>\n

Scroll down to the About subsection.<\/p>\n

Tap on Version ten times in a row (in rapid succession).<\/p>\n

Tap the back button to return to the main settings page for Android Auto.<\/p>\n

Tap on the ellipsis (three-dot) menu in the top-right-hand corner of the screen, and then tap on Developer settings.<\/p>\n

From here, you can freely configure additional settings from the list of available options.<\/p>\n

At any time, you can disable Android Auto’s developer settings by tapping on the ellipsis menu and then hitting Quit developer mode.<\/p>\n

Developer mode features advanced configuration options that are primarily intended for power-users. Some settings within this menu might cause device instability or introduce software bugs into the Android Auto experience, so proceed with caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The year is 2025 — an entire decade since the launch of the first iteration of Android Auto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,74],"class_list":["post-862123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}