You can't change the Roku remote's quick shortcuts, but there's a workaround

If you have the right Roku remote, you can program its personal shortcut buttons. Here's how.

- BEN PATTERSON

For the most part, we're fans of Roku's friendly, intuitive remotes, and particularly the ones that have voice capabilities.

But there's a sticking point—four of them, actually—when it comes to the Roku remote: the quartet of buttons at the bottom stamped with the logos of popular streaming services.

WHAT ARE ROKU 'QUICK SHORTCUT' BUTTONS?

Those so-called "quick shortcut" buttons let you jump to streamers such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video with a single button push—convenient, if you happen to subscribe to one or more of those services.

The reality is that most of us aren't subscribed to four streamers at once, or if we are, they aren't necessarily the services slapped on those quick shortcut buttons (and yes, streamers do pay Roku for the privilege of getting their logos on the shortcuts; fave.co/41DABBf).

In any case, let's cut to the chase: No, you can't reprogram Roku's quick shortcut buttons yourself. You can disable them, so long as you're comfortable getting a screwdriver and physically prying the remote open (fave.co/4ic8tfy), but you can't otherwise change their functionality.

WHAT ARE ROKU 'PERSONAL SHORTCUT' BUTTONS?

That said, Roku does offer some remotes that come with “personal shortcut” buttons that you can program yourself.

The original Roku Voice Remote Pro boasts two personal shortcut buttons that sit just above those branded shortcut buttons; they're stamped with a 1 and 2, respectively. These programmable shortcuts essentially let you record any voice command—including, say, Open Max—which you can execute later by pressing one button or the other.