Google News: 14 simple tips to optimize your newsfeed

Google News lets you read the latest news on a single app so that you stay on top of global current affairs. Its Material You makeover improves the Google News Android app experience, making it easier to read short articles on the go. The news aggregator app isn't perfect. It had an issue with news indexing that disrupted traffic to content publishers and reduced visibility in July 2023. Google announced on July 14 that it had resolved the issue.

Google News is available on the web, iPhone, and Android phones like the Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and more. But no matter how you access the app, you might want to tweak the default Google News settings to suit your preferences. Here are the best Google News tips to amp up your reading experience on a small screen.

The following steps work on Android and iOS. We use an Android phone in this tutorial, but iPhone users can follow along.

Customize notification settings in Google News

Google News might bombard you with dozens of alerts throughout the day. Before you get tired and turn off notifications for Google News (and eventually miss breaking news), you can customize notification settings to your preference.

Open Google News on your phone.
Tap the circular account picture in the upper-right corner.
Tap News settings.
Select Notifications under the Alerts menu.
Use the slider to lower the number of notifications.

You can also turn off other notification types, such as breaking news, headlines, daily briefing, daily top story, sports, and more. If you don't want to go to the Google News settings all the time, you can make the same changes from the Google News info menu. Follow these steps:

Long tap the Google News app icon.
Tap the i button to open the app info menu.
Open Notifications.
Use Google News notification categories to personalize your experience.

Change your region of interest

Maybe you want to know what's happening in UK politics or how the current economic situation is shaping up in Sri Lanka. Google News lets you check news from up to two language and region pairs. Here's how to set it up.

Open News settings in Google News (refer to the steps above).
Go to the General menu and tap Languages & regions of interest.
Google News suggests language and region pairs to add to your account. Tap Add a language and region to check more options.
Select the radio button beside a language and region. You'll see news from both regions in your Google News feed.

You also have the option to change the primary language and region for your Google News account.

Turn off video autoplay in the Google News feed

Google News autoplays video content on the news page, which can get distracting. You can turn it off or keep autoplay activated on Wi-Fi only.

Open News settings in Google News (check the steps in the first section).
Scroll down and tap Autoplay videos.
Select the radio button beside Wi-Fi only or Disabled.

Check full coverage of a story

If you want to catch full coverage by leading media houses on a specific news story, you can easily do so on Google News.

Start reading any story in Google News.
Tap the Full Coverage option.
Google News brings the same story from other media sources to read.
Alternatively, tap the Google News icon beside a news story to read the full coverage, so there's no need to open the story first.

Follow topics and save stories

Your routine may revolve around busy mornings, and you might not have adequate time to catch all the important stories first thing in the day. You can save news articles or topics that you wish to read at a later time.