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How to Customize Your PS5 Home Screen

New options for customizing your PS5 are slowly trickling in, and we've rounded up some of the best features so far on Sony's latest console.

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While it still has a long way to go, Sony's PlayStation 5 is capable of a surprising amount of customization. New features have slowly begun trickling in, and thanks to a recent update, PS5 owners now have more options available to them for fine-tuning their gaming experience on the system. Much like the PS4, you can expect these features to expand in time, but for now, here's a look at what PS5 owners are capable of fine-tuning on the latest Sony console.

How to customize the Control Center

By pressing the PS button on your DualSense controller, you'll be able to access a number of shortcuts and menus related to your games, friends, and more. If you'd prefer to have some cards appear in a more prominent position, you can highlight a shortcut on the screen, press the options button on your controller, and you'll be given a list of icons. The default ones on your menu are:

  • Home
  • Switcher
  • Notifications
  • Game Base
  • Music
  • Downloads / Uploads
  • PlayStation VR
  • Sound
  • Mic
  • Accessories
  • Profile
  • Power

And there are three hidden icons that you can make more prominent:

  • Broadcast
  • Accessibility
  • Network

You can highlight the shortcuts that you want to use, rearrange them on the timeline or even remove a few of them to suit your tastes. If you'd prefer to simply avoid all of that, hold the PS button down longer and you'll be taken straight to your home screen.

How to quickly filter games

How to filter your PS5 library
How to filter your PS5 library

Between the PS5's SSD, an external hard drive, and even the option to increase storage with an additional M2 SSD, you might quickly find your library to be slightly unwieldy. To easily find the games that you purchased, you can go to your Game Library and select the option to sort your library alphabetically, by purchase date, by platform, and their purchase source to make life easier. Your PS5 will automatically sort the games that you're playing the most, arranging their cards to help you get to them sooner.

Unfortunately, the PS5 hasn't yet received the option to sort games into folders, a feature that was present on PS4.

How to turn off background music and sound effects

How to turn off background music and sound effects on PS5
How to turn off background music and sound effects on PS5

There's a number of subtle audio prompts and cathartic background music on the PS5 home screen, but if the sound of silence is more to your liking, you can hit mute on these audio features. For people who aren't too fond of how each highlighted game also plays its own unique music, you can alter this setting by heading to Settings, selecting Sound, and then navigating to Audio Output. At the bottom of the menu you can find an option to turn off the home screen music and all sound effects.

How to disable pop-up notifications

How to disable pop-up notifications on PS5
How to disable pop-up notifications on PS5

Annoyed by certain pop-ups ruining your gameplay recording or distracting you during a crucial sequence in your latest game? You can disable those notifications by going into Settings, selecting Notifications, and then tinkering with which alerts you'd like to disable. For example, you can disable pop-ups from appearing during broadcast sessions, make them appear for a shorter period of time, or make certain that they don't display any corner icons.

How to customize the explore feed

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The PS5's Explore hub provides you with a selection of video game trailers, news, and livestreams based on the games you have and follow. If you'd prefer to not see content focused on a specific game, you can head to your library and then click on the three dots icon that appears under a game. Choose the Unfollow option, and your PS5 will now automatically hide any content related to it.

To take this a step further, go to Settings, Saved Date and Game / App Settings. From here you can check that Spoiler Warnings have been enabled. While this option is usually on by default and only for PS5 games, it's always worth double-checking to see that it has been activated.

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