Swiped back when you meant to open a menu? Android 11 could fix that

Gesture navigation is a feature on almost all Android phones today, allowing you to swipe the screen to go back, home, or activate multitasking.

The back gesture, which requires you to swipe in from the left or right edge of the screen, isn’t perfect though. Fortunately, it seems like Google will let you tweak that in Android 11.

9to5Google managed to activate a new Gesture Settings page on the Android 11 developer preview, and this page lets you fine-tune the back gesture for either edge of the screen. More specifically, you have a sensitivity slider for swipes on the left side of the screen and a slider for swipes from the right side of the display.

This could make gesture navigation less frustrating, as one of the biggest annoyances is that the back gesture can wreak havoc with some hamburger menus in apps. These menus are often activated by either tapping the hamburger icon in the top left corner of a screen or by swiping from the left edge of the display. Of course, the latter option is the same as the back gesture, which means you might go back when you meant to open a menu.

Google has addressed this to a significant extent in the last year or so though, and you can now open hamburger menus by holding on the edge of the screen before swiping in (or by swiping diagonally). But we nevertheless welcome more detailed customization for back gestures in Android 11.