Google testing Quick Settings shortcut in Android 11, just like back in the day

If you want to check out your Quick Settings in Android, you first need to pull down the notification shade. Doing so will show you your notifications (obviously) as well as the six top-most Quick Settings on your list. To see the full list, you swipe down a second time. This might change, though, in Android 11.

According to some code tinkering conducted by XDA Developers, Google could be testing a shortcut to quickly access Quick Settings without needing that double swipe. Instead, you could pull down only notifications or only Quick Settings depending on from which side of the display you swipe down.

Check out the video below to see the experimental feature in action:

The video shows that if you swipe down from the left side of the display you’ll just see notifications while pulling down from the right allows you to just see Quick Settings.

If this sounds familiar it’s because custom ROMs had this functionality years ago. CyanogenMod (later Lineage OS) allowed for this and even gave you the option of flipping which side of the display triggered which feature (or turning it off entirely). It appears Google is taking some inspiration from the ROMs of yesteryear for Android 11.

To be clear, this feature is hidden by default in the first Developer Preview of the new operating system. If you install it on your Pixel device right now, you won’t see this happen. It’s possible Google could just be testing it out and we’ll never see it in a stable launch of Android. Still, it’s interesting to see Google playing around with it.