Your Samsung phone's ad nightmare could soon be over thanks to this One UI 8.5 upgrade

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Your Samsung phone's ad nightmare could soon be over thanks to this One UI 8.5 upgrade News By James Rogerson published 4 December 2025

Put those ad-strewn apps to sleep

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The Samsung Galaxy S25 (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

• One UI 8.5 might include a feature to tackle apps that send out adverts
• This tool would detect frequent offenders and put them into deep sleep
• There could be both basic and intelligent versions of the tool

One UI 8.5 could soon roll out to your Samsung Galaxy phone, and when it does, it might include a way to prevent apps from bothering you with adverts in your notifications.

We’d wager no one likes when a notification they receive is nothing more than an advert, yet some apps are guilty of this, and a feature in One UI 8.5 might allow you to automatically put those apps into deep sleep.

Leaker @tarunvats33 (via BGR) has shared various details of what’s apparently coming in One UI 8.5, and one of those features is an option in the device care section of the settings menu to block apps that send out frequent adverts.

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One UI 8.5: Device care has added a new feature, 'Block apps with excessive ads.' pic.twitter.com/BS1PNrG6a1December 1, 2025

Going by the included screenshots, it seems there will be two versions of this feature – a ‘basic blocking’ option that will block apps that Samsung has already identified as sending out frequent ads, and an ‘intelligent blocking’ option that will analyze notifications on your phone to determine whether they’re adverts, and then block apps that send these out frequently.

The description notes though that this intelligent blocking feature’s assessment of notifications may not always be accurate.

In any case, by ‘blocked’, Samsung means it will put the app into deep sleep, which will stop it sending out any notifications or running in the background. However, the app will remain on your device, so if you still want to interact with it you can manually open it.

One of many useful One UI 8.5 upgrades

So this sounds like a potentially useful feature, particularly if you’ve encountered apps that are guilty of this practice, and while we’d always take leaks with a pinch of salt, this comes from a reputable source and the screenshots look genuine, so it’s likely coming.

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This isn't the only handy feature we'll likely see in One UI 8.5 either, as previous leaks also point to prioritized notifications, anti-theft tools, an upgraded camera app, and more.

As for when exactly we'll get all this, it’s expected that One UI 8.5 will enter open beta in a matter of days, with the finished version probably rolling out alongside the Samsung Galaxy S26 series – which based on leaks could land anywhere from January to March.

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TOPICS Samsung James RogersonSocial Links Navigation

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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