How-to

How do you use the Essential Key on the Nothing Phone (3a)?

From a video by Jen from Shown with: Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro with Nothing OS 3.1 on Android 15

Nothing Smartphones

In short

Pressing once takes a screenshot with a note, holding starts an audio recording, and pressing twice opens Essential Space with all your captures.

Step by step

  1. Press the Essential Key once. The device takes a screenshot of what is on the display.
  2. Add a note to this screenshot, for example the name of a restaurant.
  3. Press and hold the Essential Key to create an audio recording.
  4. Press the Essential Key twice in a row to open Essential Space.
  5. There you find the saved screenshots and audio recordings as a collection of your notes.

The Essential Key is the extra button on the side of the housing and the way into Essential Space. By her own account, Jen often presses it by accident because it sits where the lock and unlock button is on other Android smartphones.

As of: video from Mar 17, 2025. Menus and labels may change with later software updates.

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