Samsung is well renowned for cramming their Galaxy phones and tablets with many more functions than any one user can use. That feature density means there’s something for everyone to love, and Samsung has developed into the most popular producer of Android smartphones. But if you think the Android Settings menu is packed already, you ain’t seen nothing yet. A big area of settings is concealed from people who don’t look for it. It’s known as Developer Options, and while the majority of these settings aren’t helpful to non-developers, some of them allow regular functionality to enhance your Android experience.
Developer options are intended for folks who build or undertake DIY projects, but there are some game-changing ways to make your phone seem faster and more handy buried among them. However, it can be difficult for average users to distinguish between the settings that should be saved for specialists and those that everyone can benefit from. So, we’ve picked together some of the best Developer Options to enable on your Samsung Galaxy handset. From options that enable you fly through Android more quickly to those that preserve battery or simply offer you access to useful information about your smartphone, there’s a lot to explore.
We validated that these options exist on several generations of devices running Android 14 with One UI 6.1. Nonetheless, this advice should be applicable to most Android devices, not only those manufactured by Samsung, as many have been available in Android for a number of years and are not limited to Galaxy phones.
How to enable developer options on Samsung Galaxy devices
If you head into your Samsung Galaxy Android device’s settings, you won’t see Developer Options there. Because they are meant, as the name implies, for developers, many of the developer options can interfere with your device’s functionality or cause unanticipated issues. Therefore, they require a hidden mechanism to enable the menu. That said, rest assured that the settings being covered in this post are absolutely innocuous and instantly reversible. To enable Developer Options on a Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet:
- Open Settings.
- Scroll down to the bottom and touch on About Phone.
- Tap on Software Information.
- Repeatedly touch on Build Number in a rapid-fire manner. You will begin to see a countdown display at the bottom of the screen, which tells you how many taps you have left before Developer Options are activated. Continue to tap until you are required to enter your device’s password or PIN. Enter it, and tap OK. It should now enable Developer Options.
- Return to the main Settings page and scroll all the way to the bottom. Developer Options should now be available.
For developers and do-it-yourselfers, Developer Options offers a plethora of specialised settings. You are welcome to explore them, but unless you are certain that you understand what they do, it is better not to alter any of the settings. Changing specific Developer Options can cause a range of difficulties, from lower battery life to glitching software and more. However, continue reading, as we’re going to explore options that not only are safe but will also make the experience of using your Samsung Galaxy device much better. You may find each feature by browsing the list of options or by searching using the magnifying glass button.
Make your Samsung Galaxy device feel faster with animation scaling
With Android’s abundance of animations, using your Samsung Galaxy mobile seems smooth and seamless. However, animations also slow you down since you need to wait for them to finish in between interactions with the device. When you launch an app from the home screen, for instance, it seems to expand from its icon till it fills the screen, then when you return to the home screen, it seems to contract back into the icon. These animations are attractive, but they can be an annoyance when you want to quickly close one program and start another.
However, the animation scaling options in the Developer Options are a terrific way to make your Android phone feel faster. Think of these options like putting a video on double speed —they’ll make the animations in your phone’s UI load twice as quickly, enabling you to blaze through chores on your phone without interruption.
You’ll find these settings in Developer Options under the Drawing section, more than halfway down the list. They are named Window Animation Scale, Transition Animation Scale, and Animator Duration Scale. The latter of them is most critical, however you can set all three to Animation Scale .5x. Once you’ve done so, try with using your device to open and close apps, move through submenus in apps, and so forth to observe the consequences of the modifications. Everything need to go considerably more quickly. If you don’t care about animations at all, you may choose the Animation Off option for these settings, and although it won’t be as visually beautiful, animations will be gone totally, leaving you with a frictionless One UI experience.
Supercharge your back button with predictive animations
Every Android version over the years has come with required improvements. In Android 14, Google added predictive back animations to the popular operating system, which were supposed to alleviate a long-time nuisance. The back gesture is one of the finest parts of Android compared to iOS, yet it often behaves in ways consumers don’t expect. Depending on the context, it could transport you back to the home screen, back to the last app you were using, or back within the current app.
Predictive back animations assist you understand which of these things will happen by displaying you a preview of which screen you’ll arrive on when you make the back gesture. This offers you enough information to decide whether you’d like to terminate the motion by returning your finger to the edge of the screen.
The Predictive Back Animations setting is located beneath the Apps header at the bottom of Developer Options. Simply toggle it on, and you’re off to the races. However, be aware that this functionality must be enabled by app developers on a per-app basis, so it won’t work in every app. At the time of this writing, it appears to work in a large number of Google apps and Samsung One UI apps, with other apps being hit or miss. Most apps do not support it. However, when it does work, it is really lovely to have.
Save battery with Wi-Fi scan throttling
Most people think of the Wi-Fi radio onboard their phone or tablet as a means to connect to the Internet and nothing more. However, Android uses it for various functions, like to search for other networks and devices to help with location accuracy. Various apps may have their own specific functions for Wi-Fi scanning. While this might be useful at times and help with app operations, it can also waste an excessive amount of battery. This is because scanning for networks requires the CPU to wake up, which over time can significantly reduce your device’s battery life. Developer Options has a toggle to lower the frequency of Wi-Fi scans in order to address this.
Wi-Fi Scan Throttling is located under the Networking section in Developer Options, approximately one-third of the way down the page. The device will restrict the frequency of Wi-Fi scans once you turn it on, which is particularly useful if your device is constantly scanning and using up too much energy. On some devices, it is activated by default to avoid resource-hungry apps from excessive scanning. On the other hand, if, for some reason, you want your apps to have persistent access to Wi-Fi scanning, you may set the toggle off. However, this will, of course, lead to an increase in battery use.
Examine how much memory you are using.
On other operating systems like Windows, it’s easy to check all your consumption stats. You can identify which apps or processes are consuming system resources by using tools like Task Manager and Disc Management. On Android, on the other hand, which by default offers relatively little information, things are different. While Samsung’s Device Care (accessible from the main settings) can tell you about your battery usage and provide a basic look at memory management, the latter is lacking in detail, only able to tell you which apps are running in memory and how much they’re using. Meanwhile, Developer Options is hiding a more powerful look at your RAM consumption metrics.
When you select Memory at the top of Developer Options, a page showing your average memory usage over time will appear. The last three, six, twelve, or twenty-four hours are your options. This can be handy to see if something is wrong with your memory overall, something you wouldn’t learn from the Memory part of Device Care. Tap through to Memory Usage to view a complete list of programs that have used memory over time. You may filter this by time, just like on the previous screen.
Tapping on any particular app will display you some pretty extensive details regarding its RAM usage, including frequency, average and maximum memory occupancy, and which sectors of memory it has consumed. This is tremendously important for techies who understand the inner workings of RAM, but even for the average person, it can give you a feel of if apps are misbehaving and may need to be reloaded or uninstalled totally.
See currently executing app and system services
Similar to the memory tools we covered in the previous part, Android does not include a feature in its main settings panel that allows you to view which apps are using background services. What you see of an app when you use it is merely the user interface, but apps work behind the scenes to make sure you get notifications, activate specific functionalities, and more. Many programs must run in the background and, for the most part, won’t damage your smartphone. Still, there are instances when you may worry that one app is having troubles, and knowing whether its services are operating and how aggressively it can help you identify why, for example, that app is eating your battery or slowing down your phone.
You can find Running Services slightly near the top of Developer Options. Tap on it to see a list of all apps running processes along with some basic information, such as the number of processes. Tapping on any particular app will give you more specific information about any current processes and will also provide you a button to stop the program from running.
It is not advised to terminate an application in this manner unless there is a major issue. The best approach to force stop an app is from its App Info page, which you can locate by holding down on the app icon in your app drawer and tapping the small “i” that appears in the pop-up menu. Instead, the primary purpose for the Running Services page in Developer Options is to acquire a more granular understanding of program functions, particularly for use in debugging cases.
Keep the screen on indefinitely when charging
Have you ever been watching something on your Samsung Galaxy phone or tablet when the screen suddenly goes out and shuts off? This can happen when the program has not informed Android to keep the device awake, and it even happens during video playback in some apps. Or, maybe you’re looking at something like a live map to track delivery and don’t want to keep tapping the screen every couple of minutes to keep it active. Well, you can solve those problems by flicking on one setting in Developer Options.
In Developer Options, toward the top of the options list, is an option named Stay Awake. When turned on, the screen will never go black so long as the gadget is connected in and charged. This is particularly beneficial for individuals who are tracking slow-moving information, like a live sports score that updates every few minutes, allowing you to keep that information available at a glance without needing to keep the device awake manually.
Here is a word of caution: Don’t forget you’ve got this setting turned on and leave your device displaying a static/unmoving image for long periods of time. Doing so can create screen burn-in, a phenomenon in which a screen that isn’t updated for a long time eventually retains visible echoes of the content it was displaying in that state. For example, if you left this article up onscreen and went to bed, you might wake up the next day with it permanently etched onto your screen. Though burn-in may lessen over time, it seldom fades totally. Many of Samsung’s phones and tablets have OLED screens, which make it very challenging to fix burn-in.
Take control of your game experience with on-screen refresh rate
Contemporary Android devices offer sophisticated screens with high refresh rates and resolutions. Samsung, in example, offers its top phones and tablets with a maximum 120 Hz refresh rate, offering a fantastically smooth gaming experience. But if you’re the kind of person who plays demanding 3D games on your phone or tablet and loves to turn up the graphics, you’ll want to verify your frame rate can keep up with those settings. That’s why it can be beneficial to turn on the onscreen refresh rate visualiser, which places the current refresh rate in big, green numbers at the top corner of the screen.
The Debugging portion of the Developer Options list contains the option you’re searching for, which is named Show Refresh Rate. After toggling it, you’ll see the refresh rate shown. Use this by starting a demanding game such as “Genshin Impact,” “Magic: The Gathering Arena,” or “Call of Duty Mobile,” making sure your refresh rate is set to Adaptive in Display settings, and turning up the graphics and refresh rate settings as high as you can (if applicable in the game).
As you begin to play, keep an eye on the refresh rate. If it falls below 120 frames per second (on a more recent device with a high refresh rate of 120 Hz), you will need to either adjust the graphics settings or find an alternative method of cooling your device’s processor, like using an external phone cooler. The latter option works because Samsung throttles CPUs when they get too hot, so helping to remove the heat will offer the processor more headroom.
To the Quick Settings panel, add typical developer options.
Now that you’re using some of the Developer Options given within Samsung One UI on Galaxy devices, you may be a bit upset that you need to go through a variety of settings submenus every time you want to enable or disable them. Adding some of those Developer Options to your Quick Settings panel as toggles will make things much simpler.
Scroll down in Developer Settings to discover Quick Settings Developer Tiles. When you tap it, a set of toggles to add various Developer Options to Quick Settings will appear. For example, you may add Window Animation Scale, the parameter we described at the top of this post to let your phone or tablet perform animations more rapidly, to the Quick Settings panel, enabling you enable or disable it on the fly.
Disclaimer:
handy toggle is Disable Sensors. Think of this as converting your smartphone into a dumbphone. It will block Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other wireless connections just like Aeroplane Mode, but takes things a step further, switching off NFC, accelerometer/gyroscope, microphone, camera, proximity sensor, light sensor, and more. Essentially, the device will be unable to communicate with the environment around it in any form. It’s a wonderful choice to lock things down for ultimate privacy or just to conserve some additional battery life when your device is running low. You may also access this setting as a single Developer Option.
This material is solely meant to be read for information and education. All of the functions and settings described are part of Android and Samsung. One UI settings that work on certain devices. Certain settings may alter how long the battery lasts, how effectively it functions, or how the system acts depending on how you use your device. When enabling or modifying advanced settings, users should exercise caution and adhere to the manufacturer’s recommendations. The way a device operates may differ based on the hardware, software version, and how it is utilised.