10 Time Saving Tips for the BlackBerry 10 Hub

One of the best features of BlackBerry 10 is BlackBerry Hub. The place where will find all your notifications, be it e-mail, SMS, Twitter, Facebook and more. We can access many apps without having to leave the Hub, making you more efficient when responding to messages. It is definitely something that adds to BlackBerry 10 devices being a very productive tool. In many ways, the name "Hub" is very fitting. It is an area, as BlackBerry 10 users, we will visit frequently. Here we bring you 10 tips to make you even more efficient in your communication.

1. Make use of Priority Hub

Priority Hub

This isn't a feature that many use but for those who receive plenty of e-mails during the day, it really is a great feature that you should utilize. We have looked at the best ways of making use of the Priority Hub but to recap, if there are contacts or certain subject matters that are important, you can use Priority Hub to address those messages quickly by being able to filter them so respond to them first. You can set contacts as priority or certain conversations.

By default, contacts with the same surname as you will be marked as Priority, as well as messages where you start the conversation or where a message has been sent with high importance.

To manually set messages or contacts as a priority, tap and hold the message, tap the up arrow icon from the overflow menu and then choose to mark the conversation or contact as a priority. You can manually de-prioritize in the same manner but tap the down arrow icon from the overflow menu.

You can jump into the Priority Hub using the tab on the left menu or by setting it as your Pinch to Zoom option.

2. Use the Pinch to Zoom gesture

Pinch to Zoom in the Hub

One of my favourite features to land on BlackBerry 10.2.1 was the ability to Pinch to Zoom in the Hub. You basically pinch the screen while you're in the Hub and it will filter to your chosen criteria. You can choose to Pinch to Zoom to Unread Messages, Priority Messages, Flagged Messages, Draft Messages, Meeting Invites, Sent Messages or Level 1 Alerts. A lot to chose from depending on your preference but I highly recommend it for pinching to Unread Messages. 

To set your Pinch to Zoom criteria, from the Hub, tap the overflow menu-->Settings, then choose your setting from the Pinch Filter Criteria.

3. Set Delete Message Confirmation to Off

Hub delete confirmation

To make things more efficient, you need to be able to carry out tasks in the least amount of steps. One way to help with this is to turn off the delete confirmation that pops up every time you want to delete something. So, once you hit delete, that's it. If you're using a QWERTY device then it just takes one step to delete an email. 

To set this option tap the overflow menu icon on the bottom right-->Settings-->Display and Actions, then toggle Delete Message Confirmation to Off.

4. Arrange Hub items to suit you

Hub Management

So that you can get to things quicker, why not rearrange the Hub items to your preference. While I generally view everything within the Hub, ocassionally, I will filter and view a specific account. There are some accounts I view more than others so I move those accounts nearer to the top of the list to avoid having to scroll down to see them. We all have our priorities and being able to rearrange items in the Hub is a great offering.

To rearrange Hub items, tap the overflow menu on the bottom right-->Settings-->Hub Management-->Rearrange. Then just drag accounts to where you want them, don't forget to hit Save afterwards.

5. Color code your accounts

Hub color coding

When you set conversations or e-mails as a Priority in the Hub, you'll notice that they have a red tag along the right side of the screen. You can set a color code to your accounts in a similar manner but this time the color tag is seen on the left hand side of the screen. By tagging them with a color you can instantly tell which account they are from while scrolling through the Hub. For more information on this you can read our How-To post.

To set a color tag to an account hit up the overflow menu-->Settings-->Hub Management. Choose the account you want to tag, then select the color from the Account Colour dropdown menu.

6. Turn on previous / next icons

Hub Next/Previous Overlay icons

With QWERTY-keyboard devices, you can go between messages by hitting the 'N' or 'P' keys to go to the next or previous message, just like in the BlackBerry OS days. When full touchscreen devices arrived, there wasn't an easy way to do this. Even if your brought up the keyboard, tapping the 'N' or 'P' keys does nothing. In BlackBerry OS 10.2, gestures were brought about to allow you to jump to the next or previous messages. It wasn't the best method and often required you to attempt the gesture a few times before it would work. In OS 10.2.1, another feature was introduced that would make the process a lot simpler for touchscreen users. It's a small overlay of forward and back arrows that will appear in the bottom right corner of the Hub. This would allow you to jump to the next or previous message in the Hub. The option is there for both full touchscreen and physical keyboard devices.

To turn on this option, jump into the overflow menu-->Settings-->Display and Actions. The toggle Display Next and Previous Overlays in Email Messages to On.

7. Set your delete preference

Delete from Server, Hub or both

One of the options we had on legacy devices was the option to choose how deleting a message from the device would affect the e-mail on the server. Many people would normally just want it deleted from the device, to save space, but it would stay on the server so it could still be accessed when you logged in via the computer. This was sadly missing in earlier versions of OS 10 but we finally got the option on OS 10.2.1. You can choose to delete from just the Hub or from both Server and Hub. 

To set this option, tap the overflow menu-->Settings-->Display and Actions. Then choose your setting from the Delete On dropdown menu.

8. Set your 'Show In' preference

Hub 'Show In' Preference

The Hub is one of my favourite things about BlackBerry 10, it's where all you notifications and messages go. If you have lots of accounts, like me, sometimes it can get very busy and somewhat cluttered. You can filter into the different accounts using the tabs on the left, so you just read messages for that account only. But if there was an account that you didn't need to see in the general Hub section, you can remove it from there. They only way to view the messages for that account would be to tap its tab from the left menu. This can help to declutter things a bit. It may be an account you don't need to see messages for immediately and so therefore don't need to see it when scrolling through the Hub. 

I do this with Facebook. I have Facebook to show in Separate Account Only, so any messages for Facebook don't show up in the general Hub section, only when I jump into the Facebook tab specifically.

To do this for your accounts, tap the overflow menu-->Settings-->Hub Management-->Choose the account-->Select your preference.

9. Use gestures to move to next or previous message

Hub gestures

In an earlier point, I mentioned that you can turn on the Next and Previous icon overlays within the Hub which allows you to jump to the next or previous messages but if you're someone who likes to use gestures, you can do this. It was a feature introduced in OS 10.2 and while it takes some getting used to, it's quite a nifty feature.

Hub Next/Previous gesture GIF

The gesture to go to a previous message is to swipe in from the left side of the screen then swipe down, like a sideways backward 'L' shape. To jump to the next message, swipe in from the left again but this time swipe up, like a sideways 'L' shape. When you swipe in from the left, it will pull the screen as if you're going back into the Hub but this is ok and continue with the up or down gesture.

10. Choose your display style - Single or Threaded Messages

Hub Display Style

I have always been a fan of threaded style messages as it meant the whole conversation could be found all in one place and if I needed to go back to any of them, I would be spending time looking for them, especially if the conversation was spread out over a few days or so. But everyone has their preference and you can set this with the Hub Settings.

To set the Hub Display Style, tap the overflow menu-->Settings-->Display and Actions, select your preference from the Display Style dropdown menu.

Have you got any other Hub tips that you use? Hit up the comments and share them with us.

Read more