The little star on your Roku remote changes job depending on where you press it, from app manager to picture menu to a screen reader shortcut.
The star button on a Roku remote is an options key whose job changes with the screen you are on, and it works the same way in the Roku phone app.
It saves trips into Settings when you want captions or a sleep timer mid-show. If it seems to do nothing inside an app, start the video first. You cannot remap it to something else.
Almost every button on a Roku remote tells you what it does. Home goes home, the arrows move, the app buttons open Netflix or whatever brand paid for the spot. Then there is the Roku star button, a small asterisk sitting just below the direction pad and above fast-forward, and plenty of owners have never worked out what it is for.
The short answer: it is an options button that changes with context, plus a shortcut for people who need audio help. Knowing it can save you trips through Settings every time you want to tidy your apps, switch on captions or set a sleep timer, and it works the same way on the remote inside the Roku mobile app.
On the home screen, the star button opens an options pop-up for whatever app you have highlighted. What you see depends on which part of the home screen you are in.
In the main list of your apps, pressing star on an app brings up a fuller menu. It shows the app’s version and build number, which is handy if a support page asks which version you are running. From the same menu you can check for an update, rate the app, send feedback or remove it entirely. You can also change where the app sits: move it by hand, send it to the top of the list, or pin it to Quick Access.
Quick Access is more limited. Press star on an app there and the only choice is to take it out of that row. If you want to update or delete the app, scroll down to the full app list and press star there instead.
There are a couple of exceptions. On a Roku TV, if you highlight something plugged in through HDMI or AV, such as a game console or Blu-ray player, the star button lets you rename that input, so “HDMI 2” can become “PlayStation.” Roku’s Live TV guide also behaves differently: the star menu there offers things like a channel scan, but you cannot remove it.
The star button’s third job is an accessibility shortcut. Press it four times quickly and Roku’s screen reader switches on or off. The screen reader, which Roku used to call Audio Guide, reads menus and on-screen text aloud, so someone with low vision can move around the interface by sound.
The feature is only available in the United States for now, so viewers in the UK and Canada should not expect the shortcut to do anything. In the US it works on Roku TVs, Roku’s soundbars and Streambar models, and most of its streaming players, from the Express range through the Streaming Stick and Premiere lines up to the Ultra.
The shortcut only turns the reader on and off. To change how fast it talks or how loud it is, go to the Accessibility section in Settings.
The practical upshot is simple. If you find yourself diving into Settings to fix captions halfway through an episode, or setting a sleep timer every night, the star button gets you there in one press without stopping what you are watching.
It is also the quickest way to clean up a cluttered home screen. Rather than putting up with apps you never open, highlight one, press star and remove it, or move the ones you use most to the top.
For households where someone has trouble seeing the screen, the four-press shortcut is worth sharing with everyone, since it switches on spoken menus without anyone needing to find the setting first.
One thing you cannot do is change what the button does. Roku does not let you remap the star button, or its other shortcut buttons, to a different function.
The star is not the only button with a hidden use. In long menus, the fast-forward button jumps down a page at a time and rewind jumps back up, which beats tapping the down arrow dozens of times.
Roku remotes also open a set of hidden diagnostic screens when you press the Home button several times followed by a particular sequence. These show details such as Wi-Fi signal strength, how long the device has been running and which versions of each app are installed. They were made for troubleshooting, they may not work on every model, and changing settings in them can cause problems, so look rather than touch.
It is a context options button. On the home screen it manages apps, during playback it opens a settings panel, and pressed four times fast it toggles the US screen reader.
Inside an app it usually only works once a video is playing. Before that, a press often just makes a click sound.
No. Roku does not offer a way to remap the star button or its other shortcut buttons.
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