Samsung exceeded everyone's expectations with a timely One UI 8 rollout and more than made up for the One UI 7 release disaster. The brand is now prepping One UI 8.5, which is shaping up to be a far more significant update than we expected. Here's everything you need to know about One UI 8.5, its features, supported devices and release date.
One UI 8.5 release date
Samsung's release strategy for One UI 8.5 mirrors what the brand learnt from its previous lessons. Although an "incremental" update, it's expected to bring major features, but the best part is that Samsung is rumoured to roll out One UI 8.5 Beta in November 2025. Rumours further suggest the Galaxy S25 series may get it on November 24, 2025.
This is surprisingly early, considering the brand started rolling out One UI 8 in September 2025. Among the early receivers of the beta update could be Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 users, who may get the update at the same time as the Galaxy S25 users. The stable One UI 8.5 update is expected to debut in the upcoming Galaxy S26 series, expected to arrive in January 2026.
One UI 8.5 supported devices
Since there's supposed to be only a four-month gap between One UI 8 and One UI 8.5, we expect most of the One UI 8-supported devices to be eligible for the One UI 8.5 update as well. To reiterate, the stable update could arrive in January or February 2026, and the first phones to receive the update could be the Galaxy S25 series, Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6.
That said, the beta update will first roll out for the Galaxy S25 series and is expected in November 2025. The Galaxy S24 series could follow in December 2025, followed by the Galaxy S23 series by the end of 2025. The same goes for Betas on Samsung foldables launched in subsequent years.
One UI 8.5 expected features
Rumours so far suggest that One UI 8.5 will be based on Android 16 QPR2, thereby closing the gap with Pixels when it comes to software. This implies the core Android experience could get a few new features, including forced themed icons, support for lock screen widgets and more. Here are all the expected features in One UI 8.5.
1. New Galaxy AI features
Starting with the AI features, which are a major part of any new operating system release these days. One UI 8.5 is expected to bring four new AI capabilities to Samsung Galaxy devices – Meeting Assist, Touch Assistant, Social Composer and Smart Clipboard. Here's what each feature could do:
- Meeting Assist: Translating meeting and presentations in real-time.
- Touch Assistant: Could improve reading efficiency by processing the text on the screen.
- Social Composer: Generates text based on what you upload to social media or generate reviews on shopping apps.
- Smart Clipboard: Gives you suggestions for the content you copy such as correct, summarise, search, translate and more.
2. A fully-customisable Quick Settings panel
One of the significant features that Samsung could introduce in One UI 8.5 is a fully customisable Quick Settings panel. And with that, we mean users will have the total freedom for where they can move toggles.
With support for vertical and horizontal layouts for sliders and certain tiles, users can ensure no space is wasted, achieving a cleaner look.
3. Privacy Protection
One UI 8.5 could include a handy feature called Privacy Protection, where a Samsung device will automatically blur out sensitive parts of a document or a card when sharing it with others. The feature will throw a "May contain sensitive information" toast and show users a Privacy protection icon in Android's share sheet.
Once users tap on the feature, Privacy Protection leverages the on-device Gemini Nano model to identify and blur sensitive parts of the image. No more editing required.
4. Lock screen customisations and redesigned app icons
One UI 8.5 is expected to introduce a blurred background effect on the lockscreen upon receiving notifications to enhance readability. Besides, while One UI 8 brought new lockscreen clock styles and customisations, One UI 8.5 will expand on that by bringing more lockscreen clock styles.
Besides, Samsung could be making a slight change to app icons by adding a subtle 3D effect to them. This could make them appear slightly more prominent, enhancing the home screen's look and users' ability to easily spot them.
5. Changes and improvements to One UI system apps
Samsung introduced a lot of changes to system apps in One UI 8.0, and it looks like the brand was only scratching the surface. One UI 8.5 is expected to bring a lot more changes to Samsung's default system apps, making them easy to use and feature-rich.
These include improvements to the Phone, Quick Share and Gallery apps that get an iOS 26-like pill-shaped navigation bar. Besides, the latter will support NFC file transfers and a new family sharing feature. Samsung Routines could introduce an "Ask Gemini" routine. Auto Blocker, which restricts app sideloading, can be temporarily paused for 30 minutes on One UI 8.5.
The Weather app could include new parameters, such as pollen tracking with a new interface, besides featuring a slightly cleaner UI design. Lastly, One UI 8.5 will also add Driving Mode, which should help minimise distractions when driving. One UI 8.5 is expected to feature a lot more smaller changes in apps.
6. Notification summaries
Google Pixel devices are expected to get the Notification Summaries feature in an upcoming Pixel feature drop or Android 17. However, One UI 8.5 could get the feature earlier on Samsung devices. This also suggests that Notification Summaries won't be a Pixel-exclusive feature, which is great.
For starters, the feature will use Gemini Nano to summarise notifications and text messages from apps. It could help convey a summary of everything that's going on in a chat or a notification from an app. This way, users won't have to expand the notification to know what's going on and minimise interactions with their devices.
And that's everything you need to know about One UI 8.5. All in all, One UI 8.5 is shaping up to be far more than just a mid-cycle update. With Gemini Nano features and lots of user interface changes across system UI and apps, it's easily a bigger update than One UI 8.
To reiterate, the early beta is expected to arrive in November 2025, with the Galaxy S26 series being the first to arrive with One UI 8.5 preinstalled. We will be sure to keep you updated as Samsung announces more information and the release date nears. Until then, stay tuned.
