When you swipe up to open the app drawer on an Android smartphone, the top row is distinctly separated from your main alphabetical list. This top row contains four or five apps that change constantly throughout the day. If you check your email every morning at 8:00 AM, the Gmail icon will magically appear there. If you always use Spotify during your evening commute, it will show up at 5:00 PM.
These are Suggested Apps. The Android operating system uses machine learning algorithms to analyze your daily habits and predict which application you are going to open next. While some users find this predictive technology helpful, others find it jarring that their apps constantly move around, or they simply dislike the phone tracking their behavior so closely.
If you prefer a clean, static, alphabetical app drawer, you can easily turn this feature off.
How to Turn Off Suggested Apps (Google Pixel & Stock Android)
Because Google designs the core Android experience, disabling the feature on Pixel phones or devices running “stock” Android (like Motorola) is straightforward.
- Go to your phone’s Home screen.
- Find an empty space on the wallpaper (where there are no app icons or widgets) and press and hold your finger on the screen for about two seconds.
- A small menu will pop up. Tap on Home settings.
- Look for an option labeled Suggestions and tap it.
- You will see two toggle switches:
- Suggestions in all apps list: This controls the top row of the app drawer. Toggle this to OFF.
- Suggestions on Home screen: This controls the empty slots on your bottom dock (if you have any). Toggle this to OFF as well.
When you swipe up to view your app drawer now, the predictive row will be completely gone, leaving only your standard, unchanging alphabetical list.
How to Turn Off Suggested Apps (Samsung Galaxy)
Samsung uses a heavily modified version of Android called One UI. Therefore, the settings are located in a slightly different menu structure.
- Go to your Samsung Home screen.
- Swipe up to open the App Drawer.
- Look at the very top of the screen, inside the search bar. Tap the three vertical dots (the menu icon) on the right side of the search bar.
- Tap on Settings from the dropdown menu.
- Scroll down the Home Screen settings page until you find the option labeled Show recommended apps.
- Toggle the switch to the OFF position.
The dynamic top row will immediately disappear from your app drawer.
Why Is My Phone Still Suggesting Things in Search?
Even if you turn off the Suggested Apps row in the drawer, you might still see suggestions when you tap the Google Search bar or open the phone’s internal finder tool. This is because “Search Suggestions” is technically a separate feature governed by the Google App, not your phone’s home screen launcher.
If you want to disable predictive text or app suggestions when typing in the search bar, you must open the Google App, tap your profile picture, go to Settings, and disable personal results and trending searches within the Google ecosystem settings.