I’d like to bring up a long-standing usability concern with the Phone app on Samsung devices, particularly around copying recently called numbers. This topic has been raised multiple times in forums, and I’ll include links to some of those discussions below.
Currently, the process to copy a number from the Recents tab involves multiple non-intuitive steps:
Tap on the number.
Tap the hamburger menu in the top right corner.
Long-press the phone number displayed at the top left (beside the Back button).
Select Copy.
I didn’t discover these steps by myself—I had to search online for guidance. This alone felt unnecessary, and based on community feedback, I’m not alone in finding this process frustrating.
The phone number’s location next to the Back button makes it appear more like a header than an actionable element. To better understand the issue, I tested this with 13 colleagues and friends (a mix of iOS and non-Samsung Android users). None of them managed to copy a recent number within a minute or more. Nearly all were surprised when I explained the steps, with responses like, “Wait, you’re supposed to long-press that header?”
In contrast, Google’s Phone app allows users to long-press directly on a number to access options like Copy. While I understand Samsung uses this action for multi-select functionality, an alternative could be implemented.
Suggestion: When viewing a number in detail (after tapping it), long-pressing the number could bring up a simple Copy button instead of triggering the same multi-select action used in the list view. This would reduce the process to three steps instead of four. It’s not perfect, but it aligns better with existing functionality and improves the user experience.
As a loyal Samsung user who prefers your Phone app for its unique features, I’m sharing this feedback on behalf of many users who face the same frustration. Reducing the steps needed for such a frequent task would greatly enhance the app's usability.
I’m currently using:
Device: Galaxy S24 Ultra (US version)
One UI: 6.1
Android: 14
Phone App Version: 15.3.54
Thank you for considering this request. I appreciate the hard work of your R&D and UX teams, and I hope this feedback helps in further refining an already great product!
I thought commenting under several-years-old posts won't get much attention, hence I created a new one expecting reactions. Also some of the posts have been "resolved" so I didn't expect any attention there...
I bet a lot of people just don't go as far as checking out the communities, commenting, reacting, especially for a small thing they encounter like this.
But I can't believe that anyone will mind an additional, more sophisticated way of copying, maybe also editing before calling from recents.
Do you copy phone numbers and paste them in other places hundreds of times a day? I believe I have only copied and pasted a phone number to another app or program one time in the last 20 years. I think you need to do a little more research before you pick which mountain to try to climb.
@Oxford usages of functionalities can differ you know, and you're saying now that the ONLY case when some functionality should be considered for improvement is if you use it 100s of times a day? Or maybe if there's a good app that already does pretty much everything quite well - it can start working on improving small stuff like this?
Maybe you should think a bit more before replying? Don't think about yourself only, it's not me only after all that Googled this stuff...
What I'm trying to do is to signal the right people in Samsung that there are a number of people awaiting some kind of improvement in this area, especially when I'm not trying to request something mind-blowing, but an improvement to something pretty basic. After all one of the community guys that answered to one of the posts I attached in mine said that themselves - that the improvement will be considered only once Samsung notices more people wanting an improvement in that area. So this should serve as another signal.
If the Google phone app makes it so straight forward to copy numbers then why not use the Google phone app instead. You are not in a contract to stick to the Samsung phone app. Even I switched a lot of my Samsung apps to Google apps including the phone app. I did this because it was what I was used to on my last phone.
I really like getting out of the comfort zone when switching a phone and try and search for new alternatives tuned exactly for that phone, because e.g. no other Phone app will give you so many built-in options (IMO) as Samsung does, like the transcribe call using AI, or offline translation, the nice interface with the color schema matching with your chosen device theme colors, etc. Switching to Google's Phone app seemed really as a raw experience to me on this device exactly, that's because they built their app to match the device really well!
