Android Developer options are not everyone’s cup of tea since Google decided to hide it from plain sight starting with Android 4 Jellybean.
But, Android OS has come a long way since that time. Moreover, a few million active Android users have now become 2.5 billion worldwide. Naturally, the number of users looking to tweak Android has also increased.
Since every other Android guide on the Internet, even many of ours, need users to enable Android developer options and involve USB debugging, and possible OEM unlocking; ironically, here is another Android guide just to do that.
How to enable developer options, USB debugging, OEM unlock?
If you encounter words such as “USB debugging” or “OEM Unlock”, then it is time to enable the developer options in your Android device.
Android Developer Options
The below-mentioned steps are generic for all the Android devices running Stock Android [Pixel Launcher, and Android One]. As for devices running forked Android versions [MIUI, EMUI, ONEUI, etc], you may find a little deviation from the below process.
Here is how to access Android developer options:
- Go to Android settings
- Tap on System — About phone
- Scroll down and look for Build Number
- Tap on Build Number option five to seven times. You will see a pop-up each time you press on it, “You are [X] number of times away from being a developer”
- Once you have tapped enough times, you will see a message, “You’re now a developer”
- Go back to main Android settings
- Scroll down, then tap on the System option
- Tap on Advanced. You will now see the developer options
Once you are under Developer settings, there are a bunch of things you can do. Of course, there is USB debugging and OEM unlocking, but there are several interesting options that I’ve talked about at the end of this article.
USB Debugging
Turning on USB Debugging allows systems to communicate with the Android device. Under normal conditions, users can use the USB connections only for charging the device and sending files.
With USB Debugging enabled, users can send system commands to the Android device to perform developer-level tasks such as flashing the device, installing various patches, third-party apps and more.
Here is how to enable USB debugging in Android Developer options –
- Enable the developer settings in Android
- Scroll down to the “Debugging” section
- Enable USB Debugging
- Allow USB Debugging by tapping on “OK”
OEM Unlock
OEM Unlock is enabled before unlocking the bootloader. Smartphone manufacturers keep the OEM Unlock tucked away in the developer options since the majority of users would have no use of the settings.
Here is how to enable OEM Unlock in the Android developer settings –
- Enable the developer settings in Android
- Tap on “Enable” to toggle OEM Unlocking
It is important to note that the process of unlocking bootloaders varies on the device manufacturer. For instance, Xiaomi devices have no OEM Unlock toggle, instead, they have a setting called “Mi Unlock”.
How to turn off developer options in Android?
If you have restored the default settings in developer options, there is no need to disable them, other than the case where the Developer settings tab is interfering with your perfectionist side.
If that is the case, then simply toggle off the developer options and the tab will wipe away from the Android settings. Users unable to hide the developer options can follow the below method: –
- Go to Android settings
- Scroll down to Apps and Notification
- Tap on the App info menu
- Locate the Settings app and tap on it
- Tap on Storage and Cache
- Now, click on clear storage. This will remove Developer options from the settings.
Here are additional tweaks that you can perform in Android Developer options:
Things you can do in Android Developer options
Here are many other interesting system features in the Android developer options –
To see the average memory use of the Android system as well as other apps. You can use this tool to find out memory-hogging applications.
Not only you see the memory usage of an app at this very moment, but you can also stop the application right there.
A popular Android tweak to throttle the animations of your Android device, thereby, improving the performance of the Android device.
- Theme related tweaks
Starting with Android 10, you can change accent color as well as Icon shape in the developer settings.
