Unfortunately, that’s all this screen allows: there are no folders, no manual sorting, and it won’t even save your sort settings. If you leave this screen and come back, it will be set to Newer again (why, Sony, why?). Still, if you’re looking for a game that you haven’t played in a while – or never – this might help you find it faster. You can also tap Triangle from the home screen to access the search button, which is handy.
Customize the control center
When you press the PS button on the PlayStation 5, you’ll see the Control Center, which includes maps that serve as shortcuts and information for the current game, as well as a set of quick menus at the bottom. You can access your notifications, friends, sound options and more.
If you find this menu cluttered with options you’ll never use – or if you want to enable some that are hidden – you can customize it to your liking. Highlight one of the shortcuts at the bottom of the screen, then press the Options button on your controller. You will see a list of all the icons that can live here. Some are permanent, but others can be removed and added to make the menu more applicable to your needs.
Oh, and bonus tip: if you’d rather have the Control Center not appear at all, you can hold down the PS button to go straight back to the Home screen.
Turn off background music and sound effects
I’ve always kind of hollowed out the calming background tones of modern video game consoles, but some may not be. And the PS5 doesn’t just play soothing music in the background – it plays different music depending on which game you’re highlighting, which can be annoying.
Fortunately, you can turn off this music and the associated sound effects altogether. Highlight the Settings cog in the top right corner of the Home screen, then head to Sound> Audio output and scroll down to the bottom of the menu. You’ll see an option to turn off home screen music and sound effects, if you want.
Adjust user interface with accessibility settings
While the accessibility settings are designed with people with disabilities in mind, they can also provide some handy customizations that you might have missed (like disabling the end-to-end dialing feature on iPhones). If you head to Settings> Accessibility, under Display you’ll find a few options that you might be interested in, such as customizing the way text appears or changing the scrolling speed of overflow text.
Disable pop-up notifications
Finally, while it’s not home screen specific, I recommend heading to Settings> Notifications and customizing how and when pop-ups appear. Lots of notifications can be set to hide during videos and broadcasts, but that means when you return to the home screen you’ll often get spammed with notifications that you missed. You can turn off some notifications altogether or set them to appear for a shorter amount of time, so they don’t hang around your screen, covering those all-important icons in the corner.
I wish we had more useful options, and using the PS5 side-by-side with other consoles really makes the interface feel like it’s unfinished. Hopefully, as Sony releases more software updates for the machine, more of these useful sorting and customizing features will spread over time, so you can really personalize your console.
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