[Android 0]

TL;DR

• Android 17 QPR2 Beta 4 update includes new Settings menu options to control the visibility of status bar icons.
• Users can individually control system or notification-related icons in the status bar.
• Multiple smartphone makers, including Samsung and OnePlus, already offer a similar option to hide icons in the status bar.

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Android 17 QPR2 Beta 4 landed over the weekend, and we’re gradually learning what’s new with the update. In July, we uncovered evidence in an Android Canary release suggesting Google could allow users to hide system and notification icons from the status bar. We can now confirm that the freshly released beta includes two entries for this particular feature directly in the Settings page.

We last saw progress on this feature in Android Canary 2608 earlier this month, when strings revealed exactly what could be hidden from the status bar. However, we never quite knew what the new options would look like. That’s changing courtesy of the latest Android 17 QPR2 beta.