Samsung's One UI 8.5 quietly dropped a camera feature that users have had for years: native video filters in the stock camera app are gone from Video mode. The update, which brings Samsung's latest Galaxy AI and creative tools to more Galaxy devices, carried no public explanation for the removal, and no changelog entry mentions it. Samsung began the official One UI 8.5 rollout on May 6, 2026, starting in Korea, with additional regions and models following afterward.
Photo filters still work. The removal is Video mode only, and its appearance in One UI 9 beta, as reported by Android Authority, makes it look less like a one-off One UI 8.5 glitch, though Samsung has not confirmed whether the change is intentional.
What changed in Samsung Camera
Before One UI 8.5, Samsung's stock camera app let users apply filters in both photo and video modes. Select a look, hit record, done. That workflow now only holds for photos.
Android Police reported the change in late May 2026: photo mode filter behavior is unchanged, but Video mode no longer surfaces a filter option at all. Users first flagged the issue on Reddit and TikTok before it was picked up more widely. Android Police also noted reports that the filter option was missing across both UHD and FHD settings.
Samsung lists One UI 8.5 for the Galaxy S25 and S24 families, recent Z Fold and Z Flip models, and Galaxy Tab S11 and Tab S10 tablets, though timing and feature availability vary by market and device. Casual users who never touched video filters won't notice. Users who relied on in-camera looks to skip post-processing, or to quickly produce stylized clips for social posting, are the ones directly affected.
How to use video filters after One UI 8.5
A workaround still lets users capture filtered video through photo mode. The workaround is simple: open the camera in photo mode, select the desired filter, then hold down the shutter button instead of tapping it. Holding the shutter triggers a video recording rather than a still capture.
It works, but it does not guarantee full parity with native Video mode.
A second workaround is to record normally in Video mode and apply a filter afterward in Samsung's Gallery or video editor. That keeps the usual video controls available while shooting, but it does not restore the live preview workflow, and some user reports say edited videos may be recompressed.
What the workaround may not preserve
The available reporting does not confirm whether photo-mode hold-to-record preserves the same resolution options, frame rates, HDR behavior, stabilization settings, or lens-switching behavior available in dedicated Video mode. That list covers most of what matters to anyone shooting anything more deliberate than a casual clip. For users whose filtered video workflow has specific technical requirements, those gaps are worth testing before relying on this method for content that can't be reshot.
The main unknowns are output quality and controls: whether Photo-mode video matches dedicated Video mode for bitrate, compression, frame rate, lens choices, and stabilization. Current reporting has not confirmed those details.
Users who depend on filtered video may want to test the workaround against their preferred settings before committing to it:
Switch to photo mode, apply a filter, and hold the shutter to record a short clip
Compare the output against previous filtered video from the same device for visible quality differences
Check whether the resolution and frame rate you need are available, or whether they default to a fixed setting
Submitting feedback through the Samsung Members app is also an option. Samsung has logged similar camera requests before; whether that translates into action depends on how much signal they receive.
Why it might not be a simple bug
Samsung has not explained the removal. No changelog entry, no support article, no public statement. But two data points, taken together, make a simple software regression the less likely explanation.
The first is the scope of the gap: video filters are also absent in early One UI 9 beta builds, according to Android Authority. That is a separate development branch, which makes the omission more notable than a single-build One UI 8.5 glitch. The absence persisting across both releases points toward something more deliberate, though Samsung has not confirmed that.
The second data point is context. This is not the first time Samsung's video filter coverage has been uneven across modes. A separate 2025 complaint about missing filters in Video Portrait mode on the Galaxy S25 Ultra was submitted to the Samsung Community forum, per that thread. That issue, distinct from the general Video mode removal in 8.5, was traced back through One UI 7, persisted through the One UI 8 beta, and remained unresolved after a camera app update. The official response was that feedback would be shared with the relevant team for review and consideration in future updates, with no acknowledgment of error and no commitment to a fix.
That older Portrait Video case should not be read as proof of intent in the 8.5 change, but it shows that Samsung has allowed some video-filter gaps to persist without a public explanation.
The motive for the 8.5 removal remains unconfirmed. Whether it reflects a processing constraint, a deliberate UI simplification, or some interaction with new video pipeline features introduced in the update, Samsung hasn't said. "Appears intentional" is the most the evidence supports.
What to expect next
Based on Android Police's reporting that the gap also appears in early One UI 9 beta builds, a near-term reversal looks unlikely. If the removal were unintentional, its appearance in the One UI 9 beta still makes it more notable than a single-build One UI 8.5 glitch.
The more useful question is Samsung's long-term plan: whether Photo mode becomes the default workaround for filtered video, or whether native filter support returns to Video mode in a future Camera app update. The One UI 9 beta timeline will be worth watching on this: if filters remain absent as that build matures toward stable, it becomes harder to argue the removal was anything other than intentional. If they reappear before stable release, that would suggest sustained user feedback moved the needle.
For now, the workaround covers the basic use case. The open question is whether it costs users quality or control, and current reporting has not confirmed that yet.
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