One UI 8 expands predictive back gesture support to stock Samsung apps

The One UI 8 beta has arrived for the Galaxy S25 series, and we’ve been digging into it to see what’s new. One sweet improvement we’ve found is that Samsung is finally adding support for Android 15’s predictive back gesture in its stock apps, a feature that was (and is) notably missing from the One UI 7 update.

Predictive back was introduced with Android 15 and is enabled by default. It enhances gesture navigation by letting users preview the screen they’ll return to before the back gesture is completed. In One UI 7, this feature works mostly only with Google apps. But with the One UI 8 beta, the predictive back gesture now works across several of Samsung’s own apps, such as:

• Clock
• Calculator
• Weather
• Settings
• Voice Recorder
• Contacts

However, the gesture still doesn’t function in some Samsung apps, like Calendar and Reminders.

Another noteworthy change is that the toggle for predictive back animations is now visible in the Developer Options menu. In One UI 7, this setting could be found through the Settings search bar, but would not appear when tapped, almost as if it were hidden. That inconsistency has been fixed in One UI 8 beta, where the setting is now fully accessible. That said, we didn’t need to enable the toggle to get predictive back working on the Samsung apps.

One thing you need to know is that to use the expanded predictive back gesture in One UI 8 beta (or the older version in One UI 7), you must disable the One Hand Operation+ Good Lock module. If it’s enabled, predictive back won’t work. Of course, you also need to enable gesture navigation to use the feature. However, as we previously discovered, Google is also working to bring predictive back support to three-button navigation in Android 16.