The setting has moved, and most instructions still point at where it used to be. On a current Pixel it is Settings, then Apps, then Default apps, and Google's own page warns that some of its steps only work on Android 14 and up. On a Galaxy the screen is called Choose default apps, and Samsung's own pages disagree: an Australian one updated in July 2025 gives that path, a Malaysian one from July 2023 routes you through a three dot menu. Nothing is broken. The screen was renamed, its categories grew, and the part deciding which app opens a web link moved elsewhere entirely.
Google's instruction for a Pixel is four taps, with no save button:
Google's generic Android page words it differently: Settings, Apps, then under General either Default apps or Choose default apps, then Browser app. Samsung's route is Settings, Apps, Choose default apps.
Labels are the commonest reason steps look wrong, so read for sense rather than an exact match. Which release you are on matters too, and checking your Android version shows where that number sits.
Android calls these roles, and defines one as a unique name within the system associated with certain privileges. An app qualifies by defining components in its manifest, needs your consent to hold it, and loses those privileges when it loses the role.
So a category can look almost empty, and that is not a fault: only an app that qualifies can hold the role.
The roles Android names are assistant, browser, call redirection, call screening and caller ID, dialer, emergency, home, notes, SMS and wallet. Home is the launcher, a bigger job because your layout does not follow you: changing the default launcher.
The list grows: notes arrived at API level 34 and wallet at 35, Android 14 and 15, and the reference warns that available roles may change with a system app update.
Texting and calls are not a matter of taste. Google's developer guidance calls reading call logs and sending SMS messages functions that depend on access to sensitive user information, and says an app on Google Play must be your registered default handler for them, barring listed exceptions. Choose apps you trust with your messages and calls, then check them on Android's permission controls.
The browser is the low stakes one: Default apps, then Browser app, then your choice. Our roundup of Android browsers answers which one.
For texting, the same screen holds an SMS app entry. Samsung notes that only one app can hold it, your texts stay available in any of them, and you may be asked for SMS, Contacts, Media and Make Calls permissions. It covers plain texts, not the chat layer: RCS and SMS explained.
Here is the complaint the Default apps screen cannot answer: the default browser is set correctly and links still open elsewhere. That is not a failed setting; links are governed per app.
Android 12 changed the rule, which is why older guides describe something that no longer happens: a generic web intent resolves to an activity in an app only if that app is approved for the specific domain in the intent, and otherwise it resolves to the default browser.
An app earns approval two ways. It verifies the domain against a file published on the website, which Android calls App Links, after which links open in the app with no disambiguation dialog. Or it asks you by hand.
Your side of it is a per app screen, Open by default. It holds a setting called Open supported links, and turning it on reveals checkboxes under Links to open in this app listing the addresses that app may take. Turn it off and those links go to your browser.
Plenty of links open inside the app you were already using, in a stripped down browser. That is the app's decision, in two forms.
The first is Custom Tabs, not a rival browser at all: Android's documentation says they are powered directly by the user's preferred browser and share the state it offers, including your session and saved passwords.
The second is a WebView, which the same page describes as not supporting all web platform features and not sharing state with the browser. Such a page never consults your default browser.
Neither means your default is wrong. If the site inside the app already knows you and offers details you saved in your own browser, that is your browser wearing the app's colours.
A default also gets set by the prompt in the moment. When your phone asks which app to use, tap the one you want, then Always or Just once. Always, Google says, means it will not ask anymore.
Always is where most wrong defaults come from, because it reads like the button that dismisses the question. Just once commits you to nothing.
Undoing one is done per app. Google's steps for a Pixel:
Only the preference goes; the app stays installed, and Google says your device will ask again.
Some readers had to pick a browser from a list before reaching a home screen. That is a regulatory measure rather than standard Android; Google traces the search version to a July 2018 Commission decision.
The browser screen is newer. After Google was designated a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act in September 2023, its page says it would add a browser choice screen at initial setup from March 2024, and the user must choose a provider.
The scope is regional: Google says the screens reached eligible Pixel users in the EEA by software update in early March 2024, and that manufacturers must build them into new devices distributed there. A Commission factsheet from 11 May 2026 still describes a DMA choice screen facilitating a browser switch.
Picking a browser there installs it if needed, Google says, and sets the default browser used when links are opened from other apps. The Settings route above reaches the same thing, so a reader who never saw one missed nothing.
There is no gallery, photos or music role. A picture viewer is not on the list Android publishes, so it cannot be a category. Google's own page points elsewhere: with several photo editing apps you choose which one opens a photo through the Always prompt. Which viewer those photos should land in is a separate question, and our roundup of Android gallery apps answers it.
An app that draws a web page itself is out of reach. Open supported links only governs addresses an app claims from the system, and a page rendered with a WebView makes no claim to withdraw. Your own browser is the workaround.
Between them, the Default apps list and each app's Open by default screen cover nearly everything a phone lets you decide about what opens what. What is left over was never a setting.
On a Pixel: Settings, Apps, Default apps, then the category and the app, with no save button. On a Galaxy it is called Choose default apps. What it does not cover is which app opens a web address: that is a separate per app screen called Open by default, which is why a correct default browser can still be bypassed.
Because opening links is a separate system from default apps, and it works one app at a time. Android's documentation says that from Android 12 a web address opens inside an app only if that app is approved for that domain, otherwise it goes to the default browser. Turn off Open supported links on the Open by default screen of the offending app.
On a Pixel, Google's steps are Settings, then Apps, then the app you no longer want as the default, then Open by default, then Clear default preferences. Only the preference is cleared, so the app stays installed and your phone asks again next time.
Treat it as a permissions decision. Google's developer guidance describes reading call logs and sending SMS messages as functions that depend on access to sensitive user information, and says an app on Google Play must be your registered default handler for them, barring listed exceptions. Choose only an app you trust with your messages and calls.
Not from the Default apps list, which has no photo or gallery category. When your phone asks which app should open a photo, pick one and tap Always. Clear it later under that app's Open by default screen.
Because it is a regulatory measure rather than a standard Android feature. Google says it added the browser choice screen from March 2024 to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act, in the European Economic Area, and its help pages scope choice screen instructions to Japan and the EEA. If you never saw one, Settings changes the same browser setting.