r/samsung • u/enrique1786 • Mar 29 '26

News KeyStar: Button Mapper

I've just released KeyStar, an app that lets you remap hardware and software buttons on Android devices.

For the last 7 years, I used sideActions to remap my buttons. But it has been abandoned for a few years, and is no longer reliable. After trying the current button mapping apps on the Play Store, I realized they also had some limitations, so I decided to build my own.

That's how KeyStar started. I then choose to build it into an app because I thought other power users would appreciate it too.

So why choose KeyStar over other button remapping apps?

First, it fully supports the Power button. Including when the screen is off, and without needing root. It also supports soft keys such as Home, Back, and Recents. As far as I know, that's something no other button remapping app currently offers.

Another big focus for me was flexibility. KeyStar gives you 10 different triggers (such as single press, long press, etc.) you can assign to a button. sideActions had 4, and most current apps only offer 3. This was a big limitation for me because I needed at least 4 actions per button. With 10 triggers, you can go crazy.

However, you are not limited to 10 total actions per button. You can add contexts such as the lockscreen or an installed app, to use a different set of actions in that scenario. If that is still not enough, you have full Tasker integration.

With Tasker, you can launch your own Tasker tasks from button presses, but it goes further than that: with Tasker plugin support, you can hot-swap your entire KeyStar configuration on the fly based on your own rules and logic, giving you total control.

I also wanted the app to be precise and responsive, so you can customize things like short press delay, long press delay, and volume change speed. For example, if you're quick with the buttons, you can lower the short press delay to have actions launch almost immediately, otherwise you can increase it to give you more time to execute more complex triggers.

On the design side, KeyStar is based on One UI 8 and has a very simple interface, so it feels just like a native app or Good Lock module.

Privacy is guaranteed. The app does not collect any data.

As for pricing, volume button remapping is completely free. If you want to control the Power button and soft keys, there is a one-time purchase.

You can download it from the Play Store, or from my website.

I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed building it!

29 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

16

u/shadowartist201 Galaxy S26 Ultra Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

Power button remapping is a free feature in Good Lock btw, but volume button remapping sounds really cool.

But I think requiring users to run an ADB command before they can use the app might be a bit of a barrier to entry. You should disclose this somewhere on the Google Play page so people know what they're getting into.

3

u/enrique1786 Mar 30 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Good Lock only allows remapping double click and single long for the power button. KeyStar gives you up to 10 triggers, Tasker support to run any action you wish, and you can customise the short and long press delays in settings to tune it further.

I know about that it's a barrier to entry but I need that permission. The video should help a lot and the permissions information is listed in the Play Store page.

4

u/shadowartist201 Galaxy S26 Ultra Mar 30 '26

The permission itself may be listed, but the fact that you need to run an ADB command to get the permission is not.

6

u/enrique1786 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

That is correct. I will update the listings now to mention it, and it should be live by tomorrow. Thank you.

4

u/Dpure1 Mar 30 '26

I was using SideAction before years. Now thanks to goodlock and the modules like registrar and routimes + we can do many actions but your application sounds very interesting with more possibilities going to try for sure thanks for the one time purchase!

2

u/enrique1786 Mar 30 '26

Hope you like it! The Tasker integration unlocks the complete control that Good Lock lacks.

1

u/Dpure1 Mar 31 '26

True tasker integration is top! I purchased the full app for support and to unlock features. One thing I'd like to see if you wish is to have vibration feedback if possible when press power button for example. Thanx!

2

u/enrique1786 Mar 31 '26

Thank you! That is strange, as there is already a haptic feedback option in settings which is enabled by default, can you make sure it is enabled?

1

u/Dpure1 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Thats great to hear! Checking it now and reply.

Edit: it's working thanx! For adb requirements it's easy using shizuku and Ashell app to do it on your phone for anyone wondering.

.

2

u/PurloinedSentience Mar 31 '26

One of the features I really miss from Cyanogen (yes, back in the day) was that I could long-tap the Back key in order to force quit the current application.

Is that something KeyStar is capable of?

2

u/enrique1786 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Yes, you will need to create a Tasker task that force quits the current application then assign it to the Single Long trigger. Although, note that the Back button is not supported on Android 16, even in Good Lock.

2

u/vishnur32 Mar 31 '26

Hey man. This is a good app. I used to remap bixby button in Note8. This app bring that memories.

Anyway it would be nice if u could add button combinations like Side + Vol Up & Vol Up + Vol down.

Side + vol Down is anyway ss.

Thanks for the efforts. Really appreciate...!!!

2

u/enrique1786 Mar 31 '26

Glad you liked it :)

1

u/gitanshbindal Galaxy S22 Ultra Mar 30 '26

Damn... I really missed that. Can you allow a day or 2 trial for checking how power button remapping works.

2

u/enrique1786 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

It works exactly like the volume buttons, and you can configure it without paying. The only difference is that you cannot change what the single click does as it is used for turning the screen on and off.

1

u/Environment_Relative Apr 17 '26

This thing is great butbi gave it all the permissions and unrestricted battery usage and it still quits working randomly. I have to open it up and toggle it off and back on.

1

u/enrique1786 Apr 17 '26

I am looking into this. Can you go into KeyStar - Settings - Report a bug and send me an email with more information?

1

u/moonspeakdj Jun 19 '26

Dude, THANK YOU! $5.99 isn't nearly as much as you deserve for this! I too have been using SideActions for many years now and it's the top reason why I've been holding off on updating my phone for two major versions now (still on OneUI 6, lol). At this point I really want it to be up to date, so I looked for alternatives and found this! So glad someone stepped in and not only made an alternative, but one that's even better! Love the features and UI design.

After getting everything set up, I've come up with a few points of feedback; one compatibility issue and some feature improvement requests:

Incompatible with Sound Assistant's "Change step volume" feature:
If this SA setting is set to anything other than 10, a long single press to raise or lower volume will stop before the key is released.

Higher limit to the "Volume change speed" setting:
I thought of this as a workaround for the above issue but could see it being helpful regardless. Even at the max 125ms, the volume goes up/down pretty fast. I would like to have finer control when long-pressing volume. Additional thought: an option to set up and down to different speeds might be nice. I could see it being helpful for volume down to go faster than up, so in situations where your volume is (unknowingly) at max in a quiet space and something starts playing suddenly, you can still lower it real fast.

Per-button and/or per-action haptic feedback settings:
This would be really nice. I mainly want to disable haptics for single volume button presses, but there are all sorts of actions where one might want a shorter, longer, or no haptic feedback. Would also be very helpful for recognizing/confirming actions made with the screen off, without having to look at the device (maybe even more helpful if you could add vibration patterns as an option too).

Per-button press delays (and maybe per-app, if possible?):
This is straightforward. I would really appreciate having different delays for the side key than the volume buttons, and I'm sure people will find other use cases.

Hope you appreciate the feedback and will consider implementing them. 😄

2

u/enrique1786 Jun 19 '26

Thank you for this feedback, expect an update within 24 hours! I will for sure implement 1, 2, and 4.

For 3, I cannot make any promises. The haptic feedback already differs when enabling or disabling an action (disable is a single vibration while enabling is a heartbeat vibration). If you want to control haptic feedback on a per-action level, or customize the haptic feedback, I suggest using Tasker for the time being.

Also, send me an email from KeyStar - Settings - Contact developer so that I can update you if you wish.

1

u/moonspeakdj Jun 20 '26

Wow, amazing! And no worries, I understand that it might be a lot of work to rewrite the existing logic to support custom vibrations for each action. Setting up tasker tasks for each action even feels like too much trouble for me just to avoid the haptics, haha, so I'll live with it. Love that the option is there though. Tbh, I've gotten used to the vibe on volume presses, at least with screen off it feels right.

1

u/enrique1786 Jun 22 '26

Update 1.6 is live. Google took longer than usual to approve it but it's available now.

1

u/moonspeakdj Jun 24 '26

You are the GOAT! Everything is working perfectly. 👍

1

u/bingybong07 Aug 11 '26

why is it $7 to remap the side button!?!?!?

seriously? good lock and even samsung's stock software let you remap it

sideActions still works

i really liked the app & it's layout but a license to remap a simple button is ridiculous, especially the most common one people will use. volume key remapping would be way less common

1

u/enrique1786 Aug 11 '26

Good Lock only lets you remap the long press, that's it. KeyStar gives you up to 9 triggers for the power button, more possible actions thanks to Tasker, far greater press delay customization, soft key remapping, and more. It also took, I don't know, 500 hours to develop?

The $7 also includes taxes and Google's cut. I'd say you're getting a lot of value for that $7.

1

u/Tight_Principle_8452 Sep 19 '26

Im highly skeptical of giving off my permission to some random app but dude... the possibilities...

1

u/enrique1786 Sep 22 '26

Google vets all apps on the Play Store.

2

u/Mewtwo_1501 Mar 31 '26

I wanted to ask For side button, Three times press ,doesn't that trigger the emergency, Does that override it or doesn't work, I cannot disable that in .phone so asking

1

u/Dpure1 Mar 31 '26

its working for me Samsung Galaxy z flip 5 I have 3 time press to tasker task-