Samsung One UI 8.5 Changelog: Every New Feature You Need To Know

Samsung is pulling back the curtain on One UI 8.5, the next big software refresh for Galaxy phones, tablets, and wearables. The full changelog is finally out, and it makes one thing very clear: this is not a small cosmetic patch.

One UI 8.5 is a wide ranging upgrade that quietly improves how you edit photos, talk to Bixby, share files, protect your privacy, manage your battery, and even track your health from a Galaxy Watch.

Instead of banking on one flashy headline feature, Samsung is delivering dozens of practical tweaks that will be felt every day. Galaxy AI gets more playful and flexible, Bixby becomes significantly better at understanding natural speech, and the One UI interface picks up thoughtful touches such as partial screen recording, richer weather data, and smarter reminders. It is the kind of update that can make a familiar device feel fresh again without requiring you to relearn everything.

Galaxy AI Photo Assist gets more creative and less annoying

One of the most noticeable upgrades in One UI 8.5 targets Galaxy AI Photo Assist. Until now, experimenting with AI edits could feel a bit clunky. You would apply an AI effect, decide you were not fully happy, save or discard, and then start over for another variation. With the new update, that back and forth friction is largely removed.

Galaxy AI Photo Assist now lets you create several AI generated variations of a picture in a single flow without saving every single attempt to your gallery. Each version is stored in a dedicated history view, so you can test multiple crops, object removals, background expansions, or stylistic changes side by side. When you are done, you simply pick your favorite and save only that final result.

• Generate multiple AI image versions without cluttering your gallery.
• Browse those edits in a convenient history section.
• Select the one edit that really works and discard the rest.

For users who like to fine tune their photos for social media or keep family shots looking clean and polished, this turns Galaxy AI from a one shot trick into a flexible creative workspace.

Bixby grows up with better context and memory

Samsung’s voice assistant has often lagged behind its rivals, but One UI 8.5 brings some genuinely useful improvements. Bixby now has stronger contextual understanding, which means you no longer need to match Samsung’s exact terminology to get to the setting or feature you want. You can speak more naturally and still land on the right option.

Bixby also becomes more versatile in the kind of questions it can handle. Quick fact checks and simple actions remain supported, but the assistant is now better equipped to deal with detailed information requests as well. On top of that, you gain access to a history section that stores your past Bixby conversations, making it easier to repeat a command, revisit an explanation, or see how you phrased something that worked well.

Smarter connectivity across Galaxy phones, tablets, PCs, and TVs

One UI 8.5 continues Samsung’s push toward a tightly integrated device ecosystem. A new shared storage feature lets you access files on other Samsung phones, tablets, and PCs directly from the My Files app. You no longer need to hunt through different apps or cloud accounts to grab a document or photo that lives on another Galaxy device.

Samsung is also extending this philosophy to the living room. You can access your phone’s files from other Samsung products, including compatible smart TVs, blurring the line between handheld and big screen. Smart View, the company’s screen mirroring solution, now supports adding a shortcut directly on the home screen, so you can instantly mirror your phone to a TV or external display with a single tap.

Audio sharing gets a modern twist as well. With Auracast support, you can broadcast your voice or other sounds to nearby listeners. Whether you are sharing music in a group, projecting commentary in a meeting, or guiding a tour with compatible earbuds and speakers, your phone becomes a small scale broadcast station.

Battery and power controls made clearer

Battery anxiety remains one of the biggest day to day concerns for smartphone owners, and Samsung is clearly aware of it. The battery settings page in One UI 8.5 has been redesigned to present key information in a cleaner, more accessible layout. Remaining charge, charging status, and daily usage patterns are highlighted more clearly, giving you a better sense of how your battery behaves throughout the day.

Power Saving mode becomes more flexible too. Instead of treating it as a simple on or off toggle, One UI 8.5 introduces customizable limits, letting you fine tune how aggressively the system conserves energy. That means you can tailor power saving to your habits, keeping essential features active while cutting back on the things you barely notice.

Accessibility improvements that benefit everyone

Accessibility is another area where small touches make a big impact. In One UI 8.5, Bluetooth hearing aids can be accessed directly from the Accessibility shortcut, reducing the number of taps required for people who rely on them. Screen magnification can now be controlled with a mouse or a keyboard, which is particularly helpful on large displays or for users who connect their phone to an external monitor.

Dwell action, a feature that triggers an action when the pointer stays still for a set amount of time, gains more flexibility too. You can define custom actions for dwell, opening up new ways to control the device with minimal physical movement.

Everyday interface changes: Quick Panel, reminders, recording, and DeX

Beyond the headline features, One UI 8.5 rolls out a series of quality of life upgrades throughout the interface. The Quick Panel is now more customizable, letting you arrange tiles and shortcuts in a way that better matches how you actually use your phone.

The Reminders experience is refined with the ability to receive alerts before a reminder is actually due, giving you time to prepare instead of reacting at the last second. Screen recording gains a long requested option: you can now capture only part of the screen rather than the entire display, especially useful for tutorials, bug reports, or sharing a specific app window.

The Calculator app gets a subtle but clever boost. It can read numbers and formulas from the clipboard and suggest them automatically, sparing you from retyping long sequences. Meanwhile, Samsung DeX becomes less tedious to set up on every connection, because it now remembers your preferred window sizes and positions between sessions.

Clock, weather, and Samsung Health become more informative

Even the Clock app receives extra polish. When an alarm goes off, the screen can display the current weather as the background, blending functionality with a bit of mood and context so you know what kind of day you are waking up to. The time zone converter is reworked into a more intuitive slider based interface, making it easier to compare times across multiple regions at a glance.

Samsung Health users will notice richer insights as well. Weekly reports are more detailed, helping you see trends in activity, sleep, or other metrics over time rather than focusing solely on daily snapshots. You can also share exercise statistics together with workout photos, turning your training sessions into more engaging stories for friends and communities.

Meditation is further integrated into the ecosystem. A session can be initiated directly from a Galaxy Watch, so you can slip into a guided break without having to reach for your phone. On the hardware front, Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch Ultra gain the ability to measure antioxidant levels even when they are not connected to a phone, leveraging their onboard sensors and making these advanced health metrics accessible on the wrist at any time.

Security, privacy, and sharing get tighter controls

On the security side, Samsung is tightening defenses against unauthorized access. A failed authentication lock can now automatically lock your screen after a chosen number of unsuccessful attempts to unlock your phone, placing an extra barrier between your data and curious hands.

Identity check expands to cover a broader set of sensitive settings, requiring additional verification before important changes can be made. Auto blocker, a tool meant to keep harmful apps and actions in check, now has the option to turn itself back on automatically 30 minutes after you temporarily disable it, reducing the risk of forgetting to reenable your defenses.

Quick Share, Samsung’s file sharing solution, also becomes more controlled and smarter. You can restrict incoming files so that only devices signed in with your Samsung or Google account can send you content. At the same time, Quick Share can recognize friends and family members in your photos and suggest sharing those pictures directly with the people it detects, turning casual snapshots into one tap sharing experiences.

Home screen, lock screen, and weather polish

Visual customization is not forgotten either. When you select a specific photo of people or pets as your lock screen background, One UI 8.5 intelligently adjusts the position of the clock and widgets so they do not cover important faces or details. Additional clock fonts offer more ways to tailor the look of your lock screen without resorting to heavy themes.

The weather experience is upgraded in two places. The weather widget gains a more informative design, including a precipitation graph that makes it easier to see when you are likely to face rain or snow. Inside the Weather app, a pollen index is now supported, a particularly welcome addition for allergy sufferers who need to plan outdoor time around air quality and allergen levels.

A practical, ecosystem wide refresh

One UI 8.5 is not trying to reinvent the Galaxy experience from scratch. Instead, it refines nearly every corner of the interface, from AI assisted editing and Bixby conversations to battery management, accessibility, health tracking, and privacy. It is the sort of changelog that rewards careful reading, because many of its best ideas are subtle improvements that will quietly pay off over weeks and months of real world use.

Samsung may still add or tweak features as the beta rollout unfolds and the firmware progresses toward a stable release, but even in its current form One UI 8.5 looks like one of the most balanced and user focused updates the company has shipped in recent years.