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10 Tips and Tricks for Your Brand-New PS5

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Photo: Sam Rutherford/Gizmodo

Congratulations on getting yourself a brand-new PlayStation 5! After making all of your friends incredibly jealous, it’s time to dive into everything this next-gen console has to offer. Here are 10 tips and tricks for making the most of your PS5.


1. Avoid screenshot spoilers

The PS5 can hide screenshots sent your way if they show gameplay from beyond the point you’ve reached, or include something flagged by the developer as a potential spoiler. To make sure you’re protected, open Settings from the cog icon in the top right corner of the interface, then choose Saved Data and Game/App Settings, then Spoiler Warnings.

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2. Save the DualSense battery

By default, the new DualSense controllers that accompany the PS5 are set to never turn themselves off. If you open up Settings from the cog icon in the top right corner of the main interface, you can go to System and then Power Saving to change the Set Time Until Controllers Turn Off value to 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 60 minutes instead.

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3. Control your notifications

Blocking unnecessary alerts is as important on your games console as it is on your smartphone. If you select the cog icon in the top right corner of the screen to go to Settings, then choose Notifications, you can set which of these notifications you want to allow to interrupt you on-screen and which of them you think you can live without.

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Screenshot: Sony

4. Control your screen captures

Out of the box, the PlayStation 5 will automatically capture the moment when you win a trophy in one of your games. If you’d rather this didn’t happen—to save storage space, perhaps—then open up Settings (via the cog icon, top right), then choose Captures and Broadcasts and Trophies to turn off the feature (or just shorten the captured videos).

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5. Maybe don’t use the DualSense mic

Having a mic and speaker built right into the DualSense controller is great from a convenience point of view, but you might want to connect a separate headset anyway. Using the controller option means that the vibration and trigger effect intensity of the DualSense is automatically set to Weak rather than the standard Strong level.

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6. Lock down your PS5 privacy 

We’re all more aware than ever of how exposed we are online and to other people, and privacy concerns extend to video game consoles, too. Open the PS5 Settings via the cog icon (top right), then choose Users and Accounts and Privacy to control everything from how much data you share with Sony to whether your PS5 profile appears in search results.

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7. Control your PS5 with the app

Sony has revamped the PlayStation app for Android and iOS to coincide with the arrival of the PS5, and it comes with some neat new functions as well as an updated aesthetic. You can run voice chat through your phone using the app, access the PS Store, start downloads and launch games remotely, and manage storage on your PlayStation 5, too.

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Image: Sony

8. Play PS4 games the easy way

The PS5 can play just about every PS4 game out there, and one of the easiest ways to move your old games over is via an external hard drive. If you move them to the external storage on your PS4, then plug the drive into your PS5, your new console should identify the games and be able to run them (without using up the PS5's internal storage).

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9. View your playing stats

Phones and laptops are now much better at telling you how much time you’ve wasted on them, and the PS5 is joining in. Press the PlayStation button on the controller, go to your profile icon and select it, then choose Profile and Games, and for each title you can see how far through the game you are, and how long you’ve spent playing it.

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10. Vacuum clean your PS5

As per Sony’s official teardown video, you can remove the plates from the side of your PlayStation 5 to access what are called dust catcher holes. These are designed to, as the name suggests, catch dust, and you can simply vacuum these specific holes to clear out the dust from your console and (hopefully) keep it running smoothly.