There has been a steady series of improvements to Android Auto over the years, and for the most part, it's now a polished and reliable way of accessing your phone from your car's dashboard while you're on the road—as long as your vehicle has a head unit that's compatible with Android Auto, of course.
As with Android on your phone, there are various ways of customizing Android Auto so that it looks and works the way you need it to. You're going to want to be able to operate the interface as quickly and intuitively as possible—not least for reasons of safety—and so it makes sense to get everything set up to your satisfaction.
Whether you're just getting started with Android Auto or you've been using it for years, I'll guide you through the various customization options that are available. (I'm assuming you've already gone through the initial connection and setup process.)
Customize Android Auto on your phone
You don't have to be on the road to start adjusting Android Auto: Open Settings on your phone, then tap Connected devices, Connection preferences, and Android Auto. There are plenty of settings to work through here, but we're going to focus on the ones that customize the way Android Auto looks and works.
The first option worth selecting is Customize launcher: The next screen then lets you decide which apps show up in the app drawer on your car dashboard. Every app on your phone that also works on Android Auto will be listed, so select the ones you want to see in your car, and deselect the ones you don't.
This is a handy way of decluttering the Android Auto screen, by only showing the apps you actually want to use on the go, rather than every single app on your phone with Android Auto capabilities. Note, too, you can use the Add a shortcut to the launcher option to add a custom contact link or Google Assistant action.
With your app selection done, you can turn your attention to other settings on the Android Auto menu. Tap Day/Night mode for maps to choose how the Google Maps interface changes (or doesn't change) depending on the time of day, and use the Start music automatically toggle to determine whether or not audio starts playing from your most recently used media app as soon as Android Auto connects.
The Driver seat location and Change layout options let you adjust some basics of how Android Auto looks on screen: Whether you want the sidebar on the left or the right, and whether the media control widget or the navigation widget should be closer to whichever side the driver is on.
You'll also notice multiple toggle switches controlling how notifications work in Android Auto, if you want them to show up at all. You can, for example, have the first line of incoming messages show up on screen—handy for quickly checking the urgency of messages you get while you're on the road, but maybe not something you want enabled if there are passengers in the car.
The Taskbar widgets toggle switch is an interesting one: If it's enabled, quick controls (like playback buttons for music apps such as Spotify) will stay on show at the bottom of the screen. If you prefer to access these controls from the widget or full screen view of the apps, you can turn the taskbar off.
Customize Android Auto in the car
When you're in the car with Android Auto connected, there are a few more customization tricks to know about. Open the launcher (tap the nine-dot button in the corner if it's not already visible), then choose Settings to start making changes.
A lot of the options here, including ones for notifications and the day/night mode in Google Maps, mirror the ones that you can access from your phone, so you can modify them while in the car too. One option that isn't available on your phone is Wallpaper—tap on this to change the backdrop of the Android Auto interface.
You have a few different wallpapers to pick from (unfortunately, it's not possible to use one of your own images). The choice of picture doesn't affect the interface you'll be using while driving, but it does show up on the app launcher and menu screens.
It's worth keeping in mind that all of the options we've covered here are specific to your phone, and not the car. That means if someone else also uses Android Auto in the same car, they'll be able to set their own customization choices, including the apps that will be displayed, the wallpaper backdrop, and so on.