Not enough people know about this phone-saving Android trick

In my opinion, one of the most under-appreciated settings available within Android is the ability to set a custom lock screen message to appear whenever your phone is on standby. In fact, it’s one of the very first features I personally enable whenever I set up a new Android phone or tablet. Custom lock screen text, when activated, appears directly on the lock screen, and it has two noteworthy use cases that make it worth checking out.

First up is the customization factor: adding text to your lock screen can inject a bit of extra personality into your Android experience, with options to display anything from an inspiring quote to a compilation of your all-time favorite emojis. It’s a small touch, but it can go a long way in making your phone look and feel like a uniquely personal extension of your mobile tech arsenal.

Second, and most importantly, adding lock screen text can potentially save you from the very expensive misfortune of losing your smart device. For example, in my own case, my Android lock screen reads: “If found, please contact [an alternative phone number that I’ve provided]. Alternatively, you can choose to display your name or any other detail that can help a good samaritan track you down if they’ve located or stumbled across your misplaced gadget.

How to add a lock screen message to your Android device

The feature is available across the vast majority of phones and tablets running the Android OS

To add custom text to your lock screen on Android, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Settings application.
2. Navigate to Display & touch > Lock display > Lock screen > Add text on lock screen.
3. From here, enter your choice of text and then tap or click on the Save button located in the lower right-hand side of the flyout.

These steps are specific to Google’s Pixel OS, but they should be broadly consistent with the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) version of Android, too. Phones from Samsung, OnePlus, and other OEMs might have the lock screen message feature tucked away in a different part of their respective Settings app, or they might use different language to describe the feature.

In any case, once complete, your message should appear on-screen the next time you visit your lock screen. Where the text is actually anchored depends on which Android version you’re on and whether your phone has a third-party OEM skin overlaid on top of it or not. In general, text is located near the bottom center region of the screen by default. At any point, you can dive back into Settings and alter your message, or remove it entirely if you no longer want it to be visible on your lock screen.

Based on my testing of the feature on a Google Pixel 9 Pro running Android 16 QPR 1, I found that special characters and emoji are both compatible. I also found that there doesn’t appear to be an upward limit to the number of characters you can enter into the text entry field. However, only the first 50 characters appear directly on the lock screen, which is then followed by an ellipsis (three dots) to indicate that the message includes additional text.