Google has already launched Android 21 Developer Preview for the Pixel smartphone series. The initial version of this new operating system comes with several new features, including a revamped user interface.
One of the features is the ability to hide the perforated cutout on Pixel smartphones. If you have Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a 5G or Pixel 5, here’s a guide on how you can get rid of the notch at the top of the screen if you’ve installed Android 12 DP1.
How to hide the screen notch on Pixel smartphones
Step 1: First, open the Settings app on your Pixel smartphone.
Step 2: You will now need to enable developer options. To do this, go to ‘About phone’ and tap ‘Version number’ five times.
Step 3: Go back to Android settings> System> Advanced developer options.
Step 4: Scroll down and touch the ‘Drawing’ section and then touch ‘Screen cut’.
Step 5: In the available options, click on “Hide” to hide the cutout.
That’s it. After following the steps mentioned above, you will see a black bar above the status bar that will hide the hole cutout. Note that this is different from a similar feature on the Pixel 3 XL, where hiding the notch shifts the status bar downwards. This feature can be somewhat problematic, since it is a developer version.