How to replace icons on the Home screen dock on the Galaxy S3

Moving the icons you want into your Galaxy S3 homescreen dock is a great way to configure your device in a way that makes sense for you.

The Samsung Galaxy S III (S3) is highly configurable. In many ways, the new TouchWiz interface simplifies using the device. In other ways, TouchWiz can make seemingly simple tasks a bit more complicated.

Here’s how to swap out the apps that are in the homescreen dock on your Samsung Galaxy S3.

The Home screen dock

When you first turn on your Galaxy S3, most likely, along the bottom dock of your Home screen, you see five icons:

• Phone
• Contacts
• Messaging
• Internet
• Apps

While those are certainly five of the most popular apps you will use on your phone, they might not be the five that want in the dock. Fortunately, with just a few steps you can swap those icons out with the ones you really want.

Moving icons out of the Home screen dock

Moving an icon out of the dock (to make room for a new icon) is quite easy, simply:

1. Touch and hold any of the icons in the bottom dock and move it upwards
2. Drag it to any of your Home screens and release
3. It will now reside on that Home screen and you will have a blank spot in the dock for a new icon

NOTE: Remember that you can only move the icon onto a Home screen that has room for it – if the screen if filled, it won’t accept the new icon. You can always move the icon to the Trash can and delete it if you have no room on the Home screen. Deleting the icon does not delete the app.

Moving icons into the Home screen dock

Once you move the item out of the Home screen dock, you have an empty space in which to add a new item. You can move any App icon or even a full folder of icons into the dock.  The only caveat is that the new icon or folder MUST be on one of your seven Home screens before you place it in the dock.

1. Scroll through your Home screens until you find the icon or folder you want to place in the dock
2. Touch and hold the icon or folder and drag it down into the dock
3. Release and the new icon or folder will reside in the dock

In this example, I have moved out my Internet icon from the dock. Since I use Chrome instead, and since the Chrome icon is in a folder named Google, I decide to move the whole folder to the dock giving me access to all my Google apps.

Moving an App icon not on a Home screen into the dock

Since you can only move icons or folders that are on a Home screen into the dock, if you want an App icon in the Home screen dock, you need to get it first to one of your Home screens.

1. Touch the App drawer icon in the lower right hand corner
2. Locate the app you want to move
3. Touch and hold the icon
4. Drag it up to an available spot on a Home screen
5. Now, you can drag it down to an empty spot in the dock

In this example, I want to move my Android Central forums App icon down to the dock. I moved it to a Home screen and then I dragged it down from a Home screen to the dock.

Personalizing you Galaxy S3 is not only fun, it allows you to use your device more efficiently. Once you are comfortable moving icons and folders, you can make sure that you have exactly what you want where you want it on your phone.