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Quest 3 is here and comes with a bunch of quite helpful but often hidden features (most of which will also work on Quest 2!). Here’s a breakdown of tips and tricks you’ll definitely want to know.

Updated – December 5th, 2023

Quest 3 Tips & Tricks Contents:

1. Quest 3 Screenshot & Video Capture Shortcut
2. Quest Voice Commands
3. Switch Between Controller-tracking and Hand-tracking
4. Force Screenshots & Videos to Actually Sync to Your Phone
5. Double-tap for Passthrough
6. Turn on 120Hz Refresh Rate
7. Extended Battery Mode
8. Set Your Own 360 Background in Home
9. Lock Individual Quest Apps for Privacy
10. Color Blind Mode and Text Size
11. Type More Easily with Swipe Keyboard on Quest 3
12. Share Your View with Friends to Your Phone or Browser
13. Launch Apps From Your Smartphone so They’re Ready When You Are
14. Open a Link From Your Phone in the Quest Browser
15. Set Your IPD for Maximum Comfort & Immersion
16. Check a Game’s Comfort Rating Before You Buy

And if you’re looking for great games to play, don’t miss our list of 25 free Quest 3 games worth checking out.

1. Quest 3 Screenshot & Video Capture Shortcut

If you’re new to Quest 3 you’ll almost certainly want to capture screenshots and videos of your VR shenanigans to share with friends. Luckily this is easy with a shortcut you can do even in the middle of playing a game.

You can also take screenshots and videos with Voice Commands which we’ll cover… right now.

2. Quest Voice Commands

Voice Commands on Quest are a very helpful but highly slept on feature that will let you launch games, search the store, navigate your headset, capture screenshots & video, and more. Note: Voice Commands on Quest is only currently available to US headsets.

Tip: You can use Voice Commands anywhere in the headset, even in the middle of a game.

3. Switch Between Controller-tracking and Hand-tracking

For the most part, Quest 3 is pretty good about understanding that setting your controllers on a flat surface means you want to start using hand-tracking. But sometimes it gets a little confused. There’s a shortcut to guarantee the headset switches from controller-tracking to hand-tracking, but you’ll need to enable it first.

4. Force Screenshots & Videos to Actually Sync to Your Phone

When you capture screenshots and video on your headset it’s supposed to sync to your phone so you can access it through the Meta Quest app and share it from there how you please. In practice, media almost never automatically syncs for me. However, you can force individual captures to sync to your phone.

Within a few seconds for screenshots, and maybe a minute or two for large videos, you can open your Meta Quest app and navigate to Gallery to find your synced media (make sure to ‘pull down to refresh’ on the gallery if your media isn’t appearing). From there you can download the photo or video onto your phone and share it as you wish. The time it takes to sync may vary depending on your internet speed.

5. Double-tap for Passthrough

This is an incredibly useful feature which is the quickest and easiest way to turn on passthrough to get a quick glimpse outside of your headset (even in the middle of a game).

Just gently double-trap on the side of the headset (you can even tap it with your controller) and the passthrough view will appear.

6. Turn on 120Hz Refresh Rate

By default, Quest 3 runs at a 90Hz refresh rate (which is how often the screen updates). For a smoother and lower latency experience, you can bump the refresh rate up to 120Hz.

Now the Quest menus should run at 120Hz be default, and any applications that support 120Hz will be able to use the mode too. Note that this may have a small impact on battery life.

7. Extended Battery Mode

Speaking of battery life on Quest 3, the headset has a built-in mode to squeeze the most power out of your headset.

Turning on Extended Battery Mode will reduce the brightness, resolution, and likely framerate so the headset does less work and consumes battery more slowly.

8. Set Your Own 360 Background in Home

Meta offers a range of virtual environments for the Quest Home space and most use a 360 photo as their backdrop, but you can also use your own 360° photo as a backdrop.

Note that the default Quest 3 Home environment doesn’t show the backdrop (nor do a few others). Most of the environments will show your skybox but some give a better view than others, so experiment to find which one you like the most.

9. Lock Individual Quest Apps for Privacy

Its fun to share VR with friends and family. Since many different people might use your Quest 3, it’s nice to be able to lock specific apps so another person doesn’t stumble upon your Messenger chats, overwrite your game progress, or snoop through your browser history.

Now any time you launch that app you’ll need to put in your password before it can be used. Apps must be minimized or fully closed in order to lock after you use them. Sleeping the headset will not lock the currently active app.

10. Color Blind Mode and Text Size

Did you know that an estimated 8% of men and 0.5% of women are colorblind? That’s almost as many as there are left-handers! If you’ve never checked for colorblindness, this 30 second test is a good place to start.

Luckily Quest 3 includes some accessibility options to make it easier to use for those who are colorblind or with limited vision.

Your headset will need to restart after you change the text size, and unfortunately the size change will only apply to system menus.

11. Type More Easily with Swipe Keyboard on Quest 3

Typing with your index fingers or laser pointers isn’t terribly fast. If you want to pick up the pace, you can enable a ‘swipe to type’ feature on Quest 3 that works similarly to what you see on many smartphones.

If you don’t see the option in Settings → Experimental, it may have been moved to Settings → System → Keyboard.

Now any time the system keyboard pops up, you can use swipe typing with either your finger or your controllers.

12. Share Your View with Friends to Your Phone or Browser

Whether you want to be in the headset and show something to people outside of it, or they’re in the headset and you want to be able to see what they’re doing to help them, casting is the best way. You can cast a video view of what’s happening in the headset to your smartphone or any web browser.

This will begin casting from the headset. The user inside will see a small light on their screen indicating that the headset is casting.

13. Launch Apps From Your Smartphone so They’re Ready When You Are

Usually when you decide to play VR you might need to do a little prep, like move a chair, take a swig of water, or fix your hair. Wouldn’t it be nice if the app you want to play could be loading in the background before you even put on your headset? Luckily that’s possible!

14. Open a Link From Your Phone in the Quest Browser

Sometimes you want to view a specific webpage in your Quest browser, but it would be a pain to type it into your headset by hand. Luckily you can open any URL from your phone directly in your headset.

If you don’t see the Meta Quest app in your phone’s share sheet, you may need to enable it. Instructions to do so can be found here for iPhone and here for Android.

This is especially useful for getting WebXR content to your headset, which is immersive content that comes straight through the browser with no installation required.

15. Set Your IPD for Maximum Comfort & Immersion

Your interpupillary distance (also called IPD) refers to the distance between your eyes. IPD varies from person to person, sometimes considerably. For various reasons, matching the distance between your headset’s lenses to your own personal IPD improves comfort and immersion.

16. Check a Game’s Comfort Rating Before You Buy

Your comfort in VR can vary drastically from one game to the next. Generally this is related to how much artificial motion an app employs. Games like Beat Saber—where you only stand in one place—tend to be comfortable for almost everyone, while games like Warplanes: WW1 Fighters—which have you twisting and turning in an airplane—can be uncomfortable for some.

I hope everyone discovered at least one thing they didn’t know about their headset in this list! Are there any great Quest 3 tips & tricks we missed? Drop them in the comments below!