Add, re-style, rearrange or hide your buttons on the LG G3!
Like the G2 before it, the LG G3 sports on-screen buttons so changing your key setup is just a matter of software. And the Korean manufacturer has a whole menu area dedicated to customizing the phone's on-screen keys. Head past the break to find out how you can add up to five keys to your button panel, and change the way they look.
Firstly, you'll need to find the "Home touch buttons" menu, so fire up the Settings app. If you're using the default tabbed view, go to the Display tab, then tap "Home touch buttons." If you're using the list view, tap "Display," then scroll down to "Home touch buttons" in the next menu that appears.
From here you've got a few options.
Button combinations
The button combination menu lets you rearrange the default back, home and task-switching keys — 
— and add up to two more from the following:
- Notifications: Pulls down (or rolls up) the notification shade, useful if you want to avoid reaching the top of the screen to see your notifications.
- QuickMemo+: Launches LG's note-taking app, taking a screenshot of the current app and allowing you to annotate it.
- QSlide: Gives you quick access to the QSlide menu, which shows a grid of windowed apps you can drag around the screen.
- Dual window: LG's split-screen multitasking feature. This button brings up the interface for Dual window, allowing you to drag supported apps to the top or bottom portions of the screen.
You can drag icons into place to move them around or remove them entirely, however you can't get rid of the default home, back and task-switching keys altogether, for obvious reasons.
Button colors and transparency
From the "Colors" menu, you guessed it, you can change the color of your on-screen buttons. There are four combinations to choose from, either black or white, with or without a gradient.
You can also choose whether the buttons are transparent on your home screen using the "Transparent background" checkbox.
Hiding on-screen buttons in certain apps
If you want to make the most of your G3's 5.5-inch display, you might want to hide your on-screen buttons altogether in some apps. You can do this from within the "Hide Home touch buttons" menu, which presents you with a list of all the apps on your phone. This feature is particularly useful in games which aren't properly optimized for on-screen buttons.
Unlike Android 4.4 KitKat's full-screen "immersive mode," this setting doesn't hide the notification shade, just the on-screen buttons.
To view the on-screen buttons in an app in which you've chosen to hide them, just swipe up from where they'd usually be — i.e. the bottom of the screen in portrait orientation, or the right-hand side in landscape.
That's it. You're ready to become the master of your LG G3's on-screen buttons. When you're done tweaking, hit the comments and let us know which button combo you've decided on.
Reader comments
How to customize the LG G3's on-screen buttons
Ability to hide in certain apps is awesome.
Yeah I love the "expanded Desktop" option in Cyanogenmod I have on my LG GPad 8.3, Only downside for me was it broke Facebook Messenger, the chatheads dont pop up with expanded desktop enabled.
I'd call that a feature rather than a bug.
There is an app on the play store called "immersive mode" that allows you to pick which apps you want to auto hide the nav buttons and also let's you hide the buttons on the home screen best thing is that it doesn't need root to work ,chek it out.
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Thanks for the heads up. I will check it out!
Agreed. This version of the OS looks like a winner. Now if only it had the 805 and I could buy it today for Verizon.
If u have yourp phone rooted, you could install a rom for it if you're into doing that. I have the Cloudyg3 rom on my lg g2, and i dont even want the lg g3 now, because itd be pointless... id rather get the lg g4 when it comes out
good way to customize.. i wish they went a step further and gave u ability to HIDE ALL THE TIME and use the swipe up to reveal it.. just like the Dynamic Nav App and some other apps, which need ROOT..
unless you can just check ALL apps.. but would that include the home screen?
PS: can we please a release date LG? i've been on my backup phone and i need this to come now ; >
"i wish they went a step further and gave u ability to HIDE ALL THE TIME and use the swipe up to reveal it"
this times a bagillion.
My ADW launcher does this. It's sweet.
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I love the changeability of the LG UI. LG might get crap from people about their user interface, but I found it to be one of the most customizable UIs out there.
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It wasn't so good on the LG G2 because you couldn't set it to mimic vanilla android button layout. With the G3, it appears that you can, plus a whole lot more. I think this is great and applaud LG for listening to their customers.
This would be a great thing to incorporate into stock android IMO.
Posted from my Nexus 5 via Android Central App
I want this on the G2 ASAP.
Can you hide the buttons on the Internet app? As that is one thing that used to really bug me about the G2.
Sent by my pink but not so fluffy Galaxy Note 3
Where's my G3 LG? :-(
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I maybe way off base but these features or options seem a little WebOS-ish. Swiping up to view the home keys.....i remember doing that on my Pre. Web pages were always in full screen mode. If you wanted the home screen keys or active apps.....just swipe up. Or maybe im just a WebOS fanboy who wants it back sooooo bad.
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Well lg does own web os so it makes sense for them to use them.
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Another reason I love the virtual nav buttons instead of the real buttons.
now if I could just change the icons used. Some genius decided a record style circle represents home, and a stop style square represents recently used apps in android 5.1. I need a way to ditch the mystery meat navigation in favor of the previously used reasonable icons.
How come my home screen buttons are shapes instead of the priginal styl home screen buttons as shown on here help please i dont like shapes for button id like it to be regular like the on that is shown here