Samsung Good Lock Explained: What Is It, How to Install and Features

If you own a Samsung phone and have not tried Good Lock yet, you are really missing out on customisation. It's Samsung's official tool that lets you tweak every part of One UI, including the home screen, lock screen, keyboard, Quick Settings panel and more. The best part is that everything is free and entirely safe since the app comes directly from Samsung. So, if you are curious about what the Good Lock app can do and how to get started, follow our in-depth explainer below.

What is Samsung Good Lock?

Good Lock is a free customisation app for Samsung phones that lets you modify various parts of One UI through add-ons called Plugins. It brings customisation features which are otherwise not available on One UI by default. Each plugin lets you modify system elements like the lock screen, keyboard, notifications, Quick Settings panel and so on. You can install individual plugins and fully customise the look and feel of One UI.

good lock app with plugins open on a samsung phone

Basically, the Good Lock app turns One UI into something close to a custom ROM without having to root your Samsung phone. The app has been around since 2016, and it brought a couple of lock screen tweaks for the old TouchWiz UI on the Galaxy S7. Since then, Samsung rebuilt it multiple times, and a major overhaul came with One UI 6 in 2023.

Some of the popular Good Lock plugins are RegiStar, LockStar, Theme Park and NavStar. You can install the Good Lock app for free on your Samsung phone and then download plugins for visual customisation and utilities. Note that your Samsung phone must be running Android 8.0 or later.

How to Install Good Lock on Samsung Phones

Good Lock was once available only in a handful of regions, but that has changed now. Samsung now offers the Good Lock app in almost every region where it operates its mobile business. On that note, let's learn how to install Good Lock on Samsung phones.

Download the Good Lock app from the Galaxy Store or Play Store on your Samsung phone and then launch it.
You can now move to the Plugins tab and browse through the add-ons that you like.
To install a plugin, tap on the Download icon adjacent to it. That's it.

one ui screenshot showing good lock plugin installation

Best Good Lock Features or Plugins You Should Try

Good Lock offers several plugins in India, and we have explained them in detail so you can easily pick which plugin to install on your Samsung smartphone.

LockStar

LockStar is a Good Lock plugin that lets you customise the lock screen with greater flexibility. It gives you a drag-and-drop editor for your lock screen where you can move the clock, notifications, shortcuts and widgets wherever you want. You can also change the wallpaper, swap the clock style and add app shortcuts. Here is how you can use it.

Open the LockStar plugin and it will directly take you to the Lock Screen customisation screen. Here, you can tap on each element and customise font, colour, size and more. You can also tap on the LockStart button to add more widgets including apps, text, stickers, etc.

RegiStar

RegiStar is my favourite Good Lock plugin as it allows you to assign custom actions to the Side key. In addition, you can customise double or triple-tap on the back of your phone. It also lets you reorder the Settings app menu and hide items you don't use. You can install RegiStar under the Plugins tab and open it to customise Back-Tap, Side-Key and more.

To use it, launch RegiStar and open Side-Key press and hold action. Here, you can assign the Side key for taking screenshots on Samsung phones, opening an app, turning on flashlight, etc. In addition, you can customise the Back-Tap action. You can trigger apps or actions by double or triple tapping on the back of your Samsung phone.

Wonderland

Wonderland is Samsung's 3D motion wallpaper creator. You can add your own images, text, videos and effects and then apply motion effects like left-right, up-down or font-back movement. The phone responds to the tilt or touch creating a nice 3D effect. It's one of the best Good Lock plugins that you must try.

To use Wonderland, open it choose one of the preloaded wallpaper or choose your own background. Now, you can tap on Edit to change the motion effect, customise each element inside the wallpaper and more.

Theme Park

Theme Park is a theme designer that builds a custom One UI theme from an image. You can pick a wallpaper, select a main colour and Theme Park generates an accent colour for the rest of the system. It supports both light and dark mode themes, keyboard theming and lets you save multiple themes to switch between. The best part about Theme Park is that it lets you add a custom background to your Samsung Keyboard.

In order to use Theme Park, open the plugin and tap on Create new. Now, you can customise each element of One UI including the home screen, lock screen, Quick Settings panel, etc. You can also move to the Keyboard section and change the background.

NavStar

NavStar as the name suggests lets you customise the navigation on Samsung phones. For button users, you can change the button order, add background colour and even add extra buttons like a screenshot shortcut. For gesture users, it lets you adjust back gesture sensitivity on each and change the pill colour or make it fully transparent.

Open NavStar and turn on the toggle. You can customise the Transparency of the navigation bar, add back gesture in full screen mode and more. If you are using navigation buttons, you can change the icons and add an extra button as well.

Keys Cafe

Keys Cafe is a Good Lock module that lets you change the Samsung Keyboard into a customisable typing tool. You can change the keyboard layout, keyboard colour irrespective of your system theme and add visual typing effects. There are also custom key sounds and a typing game to improve your speed.

Open Keys Cafe and move to the Keyboard tab. Here, you can apply pre-made keyboard designs or create a custom one. Tap on the + button next to MY and choose a Colour profile, Motion effects, Sound, etc.

QuickStar

QuickStar is meant for status bar and Quick Settings panel customisation. You can hide icons you don't want on the status bar and change the clock position as well. You can also use this module to remove the key icon from the status bar. Next, you can choose a colour theme for the Quick Settings panel and enable a toggle to open the QS panel with a single swipe.

Launch the QuickStart plugin and enable it. Now, you can choose the Panel theme and adjust Button spacing. Notably, you can choose the visibility of indicator icons on the status bar and show AM/PM and Seconds in the status bar clock.

Home Up

Home Up is an excellent Good Lock module that lets you fine-tune the One UI launcher. You can change the home screen grid size, tweak the app drawer layout, adjust blur effects and customise folders. The best feature is Share Manager which lets you hide apps from the share sheet so it stops showing apps you never use.

Open Home Up and choose if you want to hide page indicators, add large folders, loop pages and more. Next, you can select the layout for the overview screen including Til stack, Grid, Vertical list and Slim list. You can go further and customise the Share manager, gesture settings and Edge panel as well.

ClockFace

ClockFace lets you customise the clock the appears on your lock screen and always-on display. Samsung offers several presets including minimal digital styles to analog faces and even a quirky panda bear clock. You can change colour, size and accent elements.

Open ClockFace and you will find many variations and styles. You can also tap on the + button to create your own clock style.

Edge lighting+

You can enable edge notification animations on your Samsung phone from system settings, but Edge lighting+ plugin takes it even further. You can choose from 16 different effects and customize the colour, transparency, width and duration of the lighting. Not to mention, you can apply specific effects for specific type of notifications.

Open Edge lighting+ and turn on the toggle. You can now set a custom style for notifications, show app icon, etc. Importantly, you can add keywords to trigger the custom style when the notification matches the keyword.

Nice Shot

Nice Shot finally fixes One UI's biggest annoyance which is the lack of a delete button after taking a screenshot. It adds a delete icon, lets you disable cropping suggestions and auto-enable DND when recording screen on Samsung phones. In addition, you can turn on a toggle to stop screenshots from saving to the clipboard.

Launch Nice Shot and enable the toggle. Now, you can add a Delete button to the screenshot toolbar. You can also turn on DND during screen recording and customise the Background colour for selfie videos.

NotiStar

NotiStar is Samsung's answer to a proper notification history and filter tool. It stores every notification you receive for up to a week and you can filter them by app or keyword. The best part is that it works on the lock screen too. You can basically use this feature to see deleted messages on WhatsApp.

Activate the NotiStar plugin and extend the Notification storage period up to one year. You can also pick which apps to track and add keyword-based filters as well.

Game Booster+

Game Booster+ is a Good Lock plugin that allows you to remap gamepad keys, change GPU settings like texture quality, rotation optimisation and more. You can also reduce the GPU load used for screen rotation in Vulkan games and improve image quality or performance. Finally, you can choose which apps are classified as games.

Open Game Booster+ and move to the Key remapping menu. Here, you can remap the game controller keys and store up to four profiles. You can go to Game category settings and manually categorise apps as games and vice versa.

Display Assistant

Display Assistant is a new Good Lock plugin and it's currently in beta. You can use it to manage screen timeout for each app and customise refresh rate for each app. Next, you can also add Keep screen on feature and define brightness limit profile for each app. Basically, if you want a module for per-app brightness controls, Display Assistant is the one out there.

Launch Display Assistant and set Screen timeout for each app. You can also change the Brightness limit profile. Under Adaptive brightness options, you can adjust the Brightness change speed. There is also an option to apply Standard refresh for each app.

And that is pretty much everything you need to know about the Good Lock app on Samsung phones. I would not recommend installing more than 2-3 plugins at once as they can slow down your device. That said, some plugins do bring quality-of-life improvements so check them out. And if you are interested in Galaxy AI features on Samsung phones, we have a dedicated explainer compiled for you.