In Android 13 Material, you can automatically adapt third-party app icons to your wallpaper. Guaranteed effect. Here’s how to use it.
Material You is one of the coolest recent features. Introduced with Android, it allows you to customize your smartphone’s interface elements to match your wallpaper. For example, if your image is dominated by green and black colors, compatible UI elements will adapt to match those colors. A simple but very effective idea that makes the overall design of your device more cohesive.
Third party app icons adapt to your theme in Android 13
App icons are an important part of the Android interface, and they also change depending on the wallpaper. But in Android 12, only some apps were compatible with this feature, and it also depended a lot on your phone. For example, if you had a Pixel running Android 12, the icons only changed in Google apps. Gmail and YouTube then synced with your wallpaper, making other apps even more visible. The same problem for Samsung Galaxy owners.
Design buffs will certainly be happy to hear that with Android 13, Google is expanding Material You support for third-party app icons. Of course, if your favorite apps are compatible and this feature is enabled in your settings, the icons will adapt to your wallpaper and theme of your device.
Today, many major applications are already compatible. Some Google apps like Stadia, Play Games and YouTube Studio are still missing. Just like very popular third party apps like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Netflix, Spotify. Android 13 is still very young and not available on many smartphones. As the operating system gains more market share, the number of compatible applications will increase.
Android 13 is still in beta on Samsung devices with One UI 5.0, so Galaxy owners can’t use Material You icons in third-party apps yet. And while most Samsung apps are currently supported, Google apps are not.
How to enable stuff you icons
If you don’t see these apps changing with your wallpaper and you have versions optimized for Android 13, then you need to activate this feature. Go to Settings > Wallpaper & Style and turn on Themed Icons. Return to the main screen of your smartphone and the icons should change automatically.