The UI includes a HOME screen, consisting of the top bar, the screenshot viewer ("Album") Icons, and shortcuts to the Nintendo eShop, News, and Settings.

However, computer security researchers, homebrew software developers, and the authors of emulators have all analyzed the operating system in great depth.

All userspace processes are sandboxed and use Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), a computer security technique involved in preventing exploitation of memory corruption vulnerabilities.

[4][3] Nintendo made efforts to design the system software to be as minimalist as possible, with the home menu's graphical assets using less than 200 kilobytes.

[7] On 11 December 2018, Nintendo sued Mikel Euskaldunak for selling a Switch modification that can play pirated games.

A WebKit-powered applet is used to allow users to log in to captive portals when connecting to certain wireless networks, as well as for operating system features such as the Nintendo eShop, social media integrations, and digital manuals.

[21][22] The Nintendo Switch home screen has battery, Internet and time information in the top right corner, and below it is a grid showing all software on the system, downloaded or physical.

The 9.0.0 update added search support to the News channel, allowing users to narrow the list via filters or free text.

Pressing the "Capture" button on the controller, in supported software, will save a screenshot, either to the microSD card, or to the system memory.

[39] In addition, in supported games, holding down the Capture button briefly will save the last 30 seconds of video to the Album.

The 14.0.0 update added the ability to download screenshots and videos to a PC via a USB cable or to a Mobile device via a webpage hosting the files generated by the Switch.

Regardless of the amount of free space on the systems internal memory or microSD card there is a hard limit on the number of screenshots and videos that can be stored.

The feature is also used as an exploit on unpatched version 1.0.0 units to run homebrew software, which has been investigated for the purpose of digital forensics acquisition.

[46] The update added online features that were previously missing from the original software before its official launch date.

[47] On 7 June 2021, patch 12.0.3 was released, but was removed 12 hours later for problems with network connections as well as issues with MicroSDXC cards.

In November 2021, the 13.1.0 version update added support for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.