How to remap the bixby button (without rooting)

With the launch of the Galaxy S8, Samsung decided to get in on the “personal assistant” action with its own version, called Bixby—there is even a dedicated button to launch the service on the S8. The thing is, Bixby is not excellent.

In traditional Samsung form, Bixby launched as a sort of half-baked idea, and honestly a pretty sorry entry into a market that already has some excellent offerings. Compared to Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, and even Amazon’s Alexa, Bixby is just plain wrong.

So, unsurprisingly, people want the Bixby button to do more than launch a shoddy, half-baked Assistant. Moreover, while Samsung has made a few attempts to block this from happening, the developer community continues to come out on top and find ways to circumvent this silly limitation so S8 owners can do what they want with their hardware.

There are a couple of apps in the Play Store that will let you do this, but for this tutorial, we are using one called bxActions. Go ahead and install it. It is worth noting that there are both free and paid ($1.99) versions of the app—the free version is, of course, limited; the paid version offers all the features. As always, I suggest giving the free version a try, and if you like it, support the developer and go for the paid version.

When you first fire up bxActions, it will give you a little note on how it works—by quickly blocking and cancelling Bixby when it launches. Once you have remapped the Bixby button, you will see a quick glimpse of the app before your custom action is executed. It is not a perfect solution, but it is so much more beautiful than being stuck with a useless button on the side of your phone—or worse, actually launching Bixby.

Now that you know what to expect, you’ll need to define which Blocking Mode you want to use. There are a couple to choose from:

• Comfort Mode: The current app stays open, with full functionality available.
• Performance Mode: This jumps to the home screen first, which offers better performance.
• Hybrid Mode (Pro only): A combination of both modes—the current app stays open and offers better performance.

Once you’ve figured out which method you want to use—I would try them all and see which one works best for you—you’ll have to activate that method in Accessibility settings. This is required in order for the app to take over the button press action. You should get redirected to this menu once you’ve ticked the Blocking Mode option you want.

If at any point you decide to change modes, you’ll have to allow Accessibility options again. Since each method has its own Accessibility entry, you’ll have to do this each time you change. (Only one mode can be activated at a time in Accessibility.)

With that out of the way, you’re ready to set your custom action. Click the first option under the “Remap Button” sections—the default setting is to launch Google Assistant.

There is a slew of options under this menu—I won’t list them all here to save your eyes, so I’ll leave it up to you to comb through the menu and figure out what you want from the Bixby button. I personally set mine to launch Google Now.

NOTE: These checkboxes can be slightly misleading, but you can only select one action at a time.

That’s pretty much all there is to it for the most part. The only other thing worth mentioning is that the most recent update for Sprint and T-Mobile S8s blocked all Bixby remapping software, so if you’re having issues getting it to work, you’ll need to tick the “Compatibility Mode” button, which you’ll find in the Experimental subsection at the bottom of the app’s Settings screen. That should fix it.

There are also a couple of other cool options here if you’re using Comfort as your blocking mode: Bixby Shutter, which allows you to use the Bixby button as a shutter button while in the camera, and Toggle Apps, which will open and close apps with the Bixby button. Neat.

All in all, bxActions is a great way to make use of an otherwise useless button on the side of your phone. I call that a win.

Like I said earlier, Samsung doesn’t want these kinds of apps to existing, so the company has sent a few updates that block Bixby button remapping. But the developer community is resilient, so clever workarounds are always just around the corner. If at any point this app stops working, just keep it installed and wait for a patch to roll through, which should fix the issue.

Samsung announced their latest flagship phones a few days ago and they made a huge deal about their own Artificial Assistant called Bixby. A lot of people are skeptical about this decision as Google Assistant is already available on latest android phones including Galaxy S8. I don’t know why but a lot of people on YouTube and Web are saying that you can’t remap Bixby key on Galaxy S8 when it is possible without root. In this tutorial I will show you how to remap Bixby key on Galaxy S8 without root. I will also show you how to disable Bixby completely at the end of this tutorial.

How to remap Bixby Button on Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus?

1. First of all you will need to download a free app from the Google play store called BxActions. This app is specifically designed for Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus to remap that extra button.

Video guide:

How to Disable Bixby from Galaxy S8 completely?

Let’s suppose that you want to completely disable the Samsung Bixby from your galaxy s8 after remaping the button. Obviously no one wants to have bunch of AI Assistants on one phone.

• There is a simple trick to disable it and that is to go to home screen of your Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus and pinch in. Touch the screen with two fingers and bring them closer.
• This will open an overview of panes of the home screen. Here you can disable Bixby by turning off a switch showing on the Bixby panel.

That is it for this quick tutorial on how to remap Bixby Button on Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus and how to disable Bixby completely. If got found this quick tutorial helpful then make sure to share it with others on social networking sites and also make sure to follow us on twitter for future updates.

Bixby is the default personal assistant of Samsung Galaxy devices. While some like it, some think it is far from being the default assistant as compared to the Google Assistant. Bixby is quite essential when it comes to system level commands or functions like opening a App. However, there are limitations to what it can do for everyday tasks. Moreover, Bixby uses quite some background data, RAM, and is heavy on battery drain. So here is a tutorial on how to either disable Bixby, uninstall it, or remap the Bixby Button.

The most annoying thing I find is the accidental click of the Bixby hardware Button. It is positioned to have many accidental presses. There are easier ways to remap the Bixby button to changes its functionality into doing something else instead of opening the Bixby System UI. However, there is no solution to accidental Bixby Button press. So we have also listed a tutorial on how to uninstall Bixby completely to avoid accidental clicks.

While Samsung did roll out the update to disable Bixby at an extent, it cannot be fully disabled, uninstalled, or remap the Bixby button out of the box for that matter. Moreover, according to sources, Samsung does not allow remapping Bixby 2.0 button on the Note 9. So BxAction, Button Mapper may not work in the future.

Here is a tutorial on how to either remap Bixby button, disable Bixby, or uninstall Bixby completely on any Samsung device including Note 9, Note 8, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S8.

How to Remap Bixby Button?

There are multiple and easier ways to remap Bixby button. You can find many apps to remap any hardware button on the Play Store.

The bxActions – Bix Button Remapper app can easily remap the Bixby button. You can set it to open Google Assistant, toggle between silent/vibrate mode, turn on flash light, open notifications panel, and do much more. The latest version of bxActions now supports Bixby 2.0 and Samsung Galaxy Note 9 as well.

You might remember those days when Samsung introduced the – not so useful and irritating “Bixby button” to their phones. Which was not happily accepted by the tech community and consumers in general as well, as a result, we got tons of tutorial videos and articles to remap that tiny ‘little button’ to something useful. At last, Samsung accepted their mistake and decided to disable the Bixby Button entirely from their devices.

Well, previously such irritating things were limited to “Samsung” devices only. But that’s not the case anymore, as this thing has spread to Android devices in general, known as the “Google Assistant” button. Which some people may like (as at least it’s better than stupid Bixby!!), while some people may not like it as well (as not all devices allow to disable or remap it).

So today I’m here to talk about this very thing, i.e. How to Remap the Google Assistant button on your Android phone to your application of choice. So let’s get started:

Steps to Remap Google Assistant Button

1] Download Assist Mapper on your android device (I’m using it on Micromax In Note 1).

2] Open the app, and you will be directed to the “Assist & Voice Input” settings page.

3] Tap on “Assist App” near the Google icon at the top.

4] Now, change the default app to “Assist Mapper” by selecting it, you will receive a pop up like this tap on “OK”.

5] Now, go back until you see the screen shown in the image above.

6] Here you can select any app of your choice whether it’s the camera, phone, WhatsApp, Twitter, Tinder (If you’re into that), or any other app or game.

In my case, I’m setting it to “Call of Duty” (Yeah! PUBG and FAUG aren’t available at the moment as I’m writing this article).

May 4, 2017
Comment

The Samsung Galaxy S8 came out to tremendous fanfare and it sucked many of us in. However, those of us who got their hands on this gorgeous device, were greeted with a surprise in the form of an extra button on the side under the volume rocker. It wasn’t for power, it wasn’t for camera, but it was there. Pressing it launches Galaxy’s new smart assistant called Bixby. If you are not a fan of Bixby, here is a guide on how to remap the Bixby button on your Galaxy S8 device, without rooting it.

Even though there is no rooting required, this is a roundabout way of repurposing the Bixby button. This guide will replace the Bixby button with Google Assistant, but once you understand how to do this, you can remap this button to do almost anything you want.

Before doing anything else, make sure you’ve launched and configured Bixby. It will make things easier down the line. Lastly, there are new apps coming out let you remap the Bixby button. Links to some of those apps will be included at the bottom of this guide if you don’t like the one we’ve picked out.

Install All in one Gestures app

The All in one Gestures app is a handy tool to have in any scenario as you can use it to tweak your device, but that’s another lesson for another day. Today we will focus on that Bixby button.

1. Once this app is installed, launch it and it will ask to modify system settings. Grant it all the permissions it asks for. Although strictly in the purview of this guide, you will not need to grant it system-wide access. However, if you want to run something like Bluetooth off of it, you will need those permissions.
2. Once the application launches, you will see the ‘Swipe’ screen. Ignore this screen and make your way to the screen on the left, named ‘Hard Keys’.
3. Toggle on ‘Enable’.
4. A prompt will appear at the bottom asking you to ‘enable All in one Gestures’ Accessibility Service’.
5. Tapping on that button will take you to the Accessibility Settings screen.

1. On this screen, scroll to the bottom until you see Services. Under services you will see ‘All in one Gestures’. Tap on it to turn it on and grant the app complete set of permissions it needs to remap the Bixby button on your device.

1. Return to All in one Gestures and tap on the overflow/menu button on the top-right corner and tap ‘Custom Keys’.

1. You will see a dialog pop up asking you to ‘Add Custom Key’. When this dialogue appears, press the Bixby button on the side of your device.
2. The Bixby assistant will launch, but you don’t have to interact with it yet. Just go back to the All in one Gesture app.

1. Once here, the ‘Key Code’ will show the number 1082. This is the Bixby button’s code. Press ‘Add’ and it will become part of the hard buttons list. What happens here is that the app starts intercepting input on this button and reassigning it to whatever function you want.
2. Tap on the Radio button (circular check button) next to Key Code #1082, this will bring up another dialog box.
3. This screen will show ‘Actions’. You can swipe left and right to go to the ‘Applications’ and ‘Shortcuts’ tabs. If you want to launch an app when you press the Bixby button, the applications tab is where you can configure it.
4. To turn the Bixby button into a different shortcut, tap on ‘Search’ and when the search options appear, choose ‘Voice Search’.
5. Now you should see voice search under the Key Code #1082.

This will enable you to activate Google’s voice assistant instead of Bixby and you will have salvaged the one sore point of an otherwise fantastic device.

Alternative apps that you can use to remap the Bixby button like BxAction, BixRemap, and Custom Bixby Button.

As the saying goes, when the world gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or in this case, when Samsung gives you Bixby, use an app to remap the Bixby button to Google Assistant or any other app.

A number of apps helping people to remap their Bixby button have cropped up. We’ve decided to list some of the best options and talk about what we like and what we don’t.

Remap Bixby without an app

BixRemap

After Samsung’s blocking update – which has also caused problems for multiple users with a “DQA keeps stopping” error message – the ability to remap the Bixby button went with it. Until a Redditor by the name of Dave Bennett came along.

He decided to write a basic app to bypass Samsung’s blockade by simply launching Google Assistant over the top of Bixby whenever the button is pressed. As such, you’ll see a quick flash of Bixby before Assistant elbows it out of the way to give you its more useful feature set, you know, like actual voice commands.

What’s even better is that there’s absolutely nothing to it either, no root, no ADB commands, no anything. Simply install the BixRemap app from Google Play via the button below, flip the switch in Usage Data Access and then hit the big old Start Service button. Note that following Samsung’s latest update some S8 owners are no longer able to call up Bixby with a single press or the dedicated button, so you might need a double press instead.

It’s not a very elegant solution and means that you’ll have both Bixby and Assistant running on top of each other, but until a more polished fix comes (I’m sure there are more than a few devs working on it as we speak) it’ll suffice. Several other Redditors have suggested the app be updated to lower its priority settings to remove the persistent status bar icon and to add a launch at boot option. Bennett seems to be open to the ideas so keep your eyes peeled for that update.

bxActions

bxActions is a very well designed app that gives you access to a number of different actions to map the Bixby button to. You can’t remap the button to whatever you want, but the 10 options it does give you are all quite useful to have on the fly. You’ll have to set up Hello Bixby for the app to work while the screen is off, and after that it will quickly launch Bixby, then your app, then close Bixby. This proves just how “hacky” this method is, but you can’t see the series of actions when the screen is unlocked, so its really not much of an issue.

Check out the screenshots above to see if this is the app for you, or continue on to see other options.

BixBye

Bixby Button Remapper

Which Bixby remap app is your favorite? Is there a great one you didn’t see covered here?

No root required!

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9, which was released earlier this year, features Samsung’s latest Bixby 2.0 which came equipped on last year’s Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. Some say that the Bixby 2.0 is more if a downgrade than an update, however, as certain features were stripped out – luckily, there are a few easy ways to remap the Galaxy Note 9’s Bixby 2.0 button and customize it to your liking.

There are a handful of remapping apps for Bixby 2.0, but we’re going to show you the two best, after a lot of testing was done by the development community. Read on to find out how to remap the Bixby button on Samsung Galaxy Note 9, but be warned that these apps will require ADB on your computer – see Appual’s guide “How to Install ADB on Windows”.

App #1: Button Mapper

Button Mapper lets you remap any button on your phone, but specifically for our purposes, it lets you remap the Bixby button on the Galaxy Note 9. This app is more reliable than option two, but it does have one downside. You need to run the script every time you reboot your phone. You can follow the tutorial below to set it up.

1. Install Button Mapper from the Google Play Store.
2. Set up ADB on your computer. You can follow this guide to get it installed.
3. Enable ADB by going to Settings > About Phone > Software Information and tap build number 7 times. Once you do this enter your password and go back twice. You can enter the developer options menu now. Just toggle the USB Debugging switch to enable ADB.
4. Open the Button Mapper app, at the bottom of the window, there will be a popup asking you to enable accessibility services. You then just enable accessibility services for Button Mapper.
5. Select the Bixby Button option at the top of the app. Then click the customize button. Once you do this you will need to run the following commands:

You will need to run this second command every time you reboot your phone. This will also disable Bixby Voice. If you don’t disable Bixby Voice, it will open every time you press the button along with what you have it remapped to. You can re-enable Bixby Voice with the following command:

You select whatever option you want to use in the single tap and long press menus. You can set it to do things like open Google Assistant or toggle the flashlight.

This app seems to be a bit better in use because it disables Bixby Voice and remaps it. The downside is that you will have to run the ADB command every time you reboot your phone. If you don’t want to have to run the command every time you reboot your phone, option 2 will be for you.

App #2: bxActions

bxActions is an app that has been doing Bixby remapping since the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ launched last year. This app is pretty reliable for remapping Bixby on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, but Bixby Voice is still installed so there could be some compatibility issues with that. The developer is actively developing the app so if you do find any bugs, you should expect them to be fixed.

1. Join the open beta for bxActions then install the app.
2. Install ADB on your computer. You can follow this guide to get it installed.
3. Enable ADB by going to Settings > About Phone > Software Information and tap build number 7 times. Once you do this enter your password and go back twice. You can enter the developer options menu now. Just toggle the USB debugging switch to enable ADB.
4. Open bxActions and follow the prompts to give it the permissions it needs.
5. Select the Bix button options and click the red box that says “please unlock permissions using a PC”
6. Run the two commands:

Once you do this close and reopen the app.

You can now select the option you want to use to remap the Bixby button on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. This app has actions like Google Assistant and the flashlight toggle as well.

This app does work well, but it’s not always as reliable as Button Mapper in my experience. It has the great upside of only needing to be enabled once. You don’t even need to run the adb command, but it does make the app faster and more reliable. This app is by no means bad—I would say it’s probably the best for its function. Just sometimes, I have found it to be unreliable on my Galaxy Note 9.

What can you remap the Bixby 2.0 button to do?

Button Mapper lets you remap the Bixby button on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 to either a long press or a single press. Once you do this you can remap it to one of the actions in the list below. There are also options for Zello, which is a walkie-talkie app. There are Pro options for disabling Bixby when locked and vibration on button press.

• Default
• Home
• Back
• Recent apps
• Show menu
• Last app
• Turn the screen off
• Toggle flashlight
• Power dialog
• Screenshot
• Split screen
• Tasker intent
• Do not disturb
• Toggle silent/vibration
• Mute volume
• Mute microphone
• Volume +
• Volume –
• Previous track
• Next track
• Play/Pause
• Scroll up
• Scroll down
• Copy
• Paste
• Kill foreground app
• Quick settings
• Notifications
• Clear notifications
• Brightness +
• Brightness –
• Toggle auto brightness
• Toggle BlueTooth
• Toggle WiFi
• Toggle portrait
• Change keyboard
• Open URL
• Zello PTT (Pro only)
• Search
• Assistant
• Open any application

bxActions has options for both a single press and long press, along with a long press on the lock screen. The long press and long press on lock screen both require the pro mode to be unlocked for $3. You can remap the Bixby button on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 to the actions below.

• Disable Bixby
• Enable Bixby
• Home
• Back
• Phone (dialer)
• Camera
• Launch application
• Launch shortcut action
• Launch Tasker task (Pro)
• Google Now
• Google assistant
• Google assistant extra (supports direct speech input and “whats on my screen” action
• Media play/pause
• Media next
• Volume up
• Volume down
• Do not disturb (silent)
• Sound mode (Sound, vibrate, silent)
• Sound mode iOS (Sound, vibrate) (Pro)
• Task manager
• Power menu
• Notification center
• Settings tray
• Toggle auto rotation
• Toggle split screen (Pro)
• Flashlight (system)
• Flashlight (extra power)
• Take screenshot
• Fullscreen on/off
• Fullscreen for the current app
• Cancel all and mark all notifications as read (Pro)
• Mark as read (Pro)
• Heads-up notifications on/off (Pro)
• Take a screenshot with Samsung Capture (Pro and root)

So there you have it – if you experience any problems in getting either of these apps to work on your Samsung Galaxy Note 9, please let us know in the comments!

If you use Android, you probably use the Google Assistant. If you’re a Galaxy user, Samsung’s own Bixby can get in the way—especially with the Bixby button on the S8, S9, and Note 8. But there’s good news: it’s easy to turn off.

So, Why Is it Bad?

The thing with Bixby is that it’s not really horrible—it’s just unnecessary. Anything Bixby can do, Assistant can do better. Bixby Vision was arguably its most useful feature, but with the rise of Google Lens, even that isn’t so useful anymore. Sorry, Samsung.

But redundancy isn’t even the most annoying part of Bixby. It’s that stupid Bixby button that Samsung just had to throw on the side of the S8, S9, and Note 8. It’s a constant thorn in Galaxy users’ sides, mostly because it’s just too easy to mistake for the volume rocker.

Even if you’re kind of into Bixby (or at least want to give it a go before you decide to get rid of it altogether), you can continue to use it and just disable the button itself. So at least there’s that. We’ll cover all the details down below.

How to Disable the Bixby Button

In order to completely disable the Bixby button, you have to a least press it once, and then set up Bixby. Counter-intuitive to the endgame here, but that’s how it is.

If you plan on using Bixby, just without the button, you’ll want to take the time to set Bixby up properly. If you plan on not using Bixby at all, you can just breeze through the setup.

After you get Bixby set up, it’s time to disable that button. See that little cog icon at the top right? Tap it.

This opens a quick “Bixby Key” menu. The menu literally contains just the one toggle, so turn it off.

From now on, nothing will happen when you tap the Bixby Button. No more Bixby Home for you! The cool thing here is that if you still use Bixby voice for something (anything), you can still long-press the button to bring up Voice.

And if you want, you can now put that button to better use by remapping it with an app named bxActions. Good stuff.

How to Completely Disable Bixby

If you’re all about living that Google Assistant life and want nothing to do with Bixby at all, you’ll want to take things a step further and completely shut it down. Again, you’ll need to have Bixby set up first to do this, so run through the setup process if you haven’t already.

With Bixby up and running, give that hardware button a tap. If you disabled the button and then navigated away, just swipe over to the far left home screen on the stock launcher—this brings up Bixby Home.

Tap the three dots in the upper right corner, and then choose the “Settings” option.

Scroll down to the Voice section, and turn off the “Bixby Voice” toggle. Most all the options below it instantly gray out, meaning they’re disabled. That’s what you want.

There’s one last thing you’ll need to do to get rid of all traces of Bixby: shut down Bixby Home.

To do that, jump to the home screen and long-press it. Swipe over to the far left screen, which is the Bixby Home screen. At the top, turn off the “Bixby Home” toggle, and Bixby is gone forever. Or at least until you re-enable it.

How to Get Bixby Back

If you have a change of heart and want to give Bixby another go, you may be wondering how to get it back. You’ll have to start by re-enabling it in Bixby Home in the stock launcher by following the instructions in the previous section and turning the “Bixby Home” toggle back on.

After that, you can re-enable Bixby Voice in the Settings menu and the Bixby Button. Easy peasy.

It’s worth noting that you can mix and match things from the Bixby feature if you don’t want to completely get rid of it. For example, you could turn off the Bixby Button, but leave Bixby Voice and Bixby Home enabled. Or get rid of Home and use the Button. Or any other variation that you want.

The battle of virtual assistants doesn’t look like it is coming to an end. Manufacturers are improving and adding new features to their own assistants every day. Some of them such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple have integrated them into smart speakers. Samsung has its own assistant too, called Bixby. Bixby has been part of Samsung phones ever since the release of the Galaxy S8. In addition, Samsung includes a dedicated button just for Bixby. This has been a highly criticized move because the dedicated button is just under the volume keys and it makes up for a lot of accidental presses.

Another issue with the dedicated -button is that it has been programmed to do just one thing, to launch Bixby. This means you cannot use the button for any other actions. If you do not use the assistant on your phone, then the button is useless. This is about to change soon, as Samsung has announced that it will release an update for all Galaxy phones that have a dedicated button. The update will let users change and assign different actions to the single and double press of the button. The update will come soon on the S10, S9 and S8.

In the meanwhile, there is another way used by thousands of users to remap the button. A custom app called bxActions is an application that remaps the Bixby button on applicable devices. It has been online for more than two years, ever since the first phone with such functionality, the Galaxy S8 was released. If you want to remap the Bixby button and add more functionality to your phone without root, then go ahead and check the tutorial below.

How To Remap Bixby Button on Galaxy S10, S9, S8, Note 9, Note 8 devices

With BxActions you can remap the Bixby button to various actions. Here are some of the actions you can assign.

• Launch Google Assistant
• Switch mute – sound profiles
• Take a screenshot
• Go into full-screen mode
• Launch any app that you want
• Activate the flashlight.
• Go back to the most recently used apps

Furthermore, you can modify the actions of the volume keys. For example, you can skip tracks when the volume keys are pressed.

How To Remap Bixby Button to Launch Google Assistant

1. Download BxActions from the download link below. Open the app.
2. Go to Bixbi Button and tap on Single Press.
3. Scroll down until you go to the Google section.
4. Tap and select Google Now, Google Assistant or Google Assistant Extra.
5. Go to the home screen.
6. Press the Bixby button. Google Assistant will be activated.

The app does not require any root access, and there is zero battery consumption.