In your android phone’s settings, there is a menu of options that not many are familiar with called ‘Developer Options’. Most of these tools are used by technical developers but knowing how to enable developer options on android for your advantage can help increase your phone’s efficiency. There are many tools and options in the developer options menu, which may make this task a little confusing, but it is easy once you get a hang of it.
By the end of this guide, you will know exactly what different developer options are and how to disable or enable developer options on android for your advantage.
Guide to Enable Developer Options on Android
1. Open your android phone’s settings. In most android phones the icon for settings is a silver gear. You will find it in the apps or by simply scrolling down on your android phone’s home screen.
2. In the settings menu find and click on About device. For some phone brands such as TECNO phone, tap on My Phone
3.In the ‘About device’ menu, find Build Number and tap it seven times. This is usually a big alphanumeric number unique for your phone.
4.Now you can easily find ‘Developer options’ under Systemin the settings menu of your phone. If it does not appear, search ‘Developer Options’ in the search bar of your phone’s settings menu.
How to Disable Developer Options on Android
1.Open your android phone’s settings by clicking on the silver gear.
2.Tap ‘Developer Options’ in the settings menu.
3.Tap the slider button at the top right of the screen Off.
Note: The same steps are applicable for Infinix, TECNO, and Itel phones.
What Can You Do with Developer Options?
You can increase your phone’s efficiency in multiple aspects if you know how to use developer options. These are some tasks that you can do with developer options:
Speed-up or slow-down android device animation
In the developer options menu you will find the ‘animation scale options’. If your android device is slow, you can speed it up by reducing the animation scale. If your android device is performing well, you can increase the animation scale to increase the performance.
Speed-up games and apps performance
For games and apps that are graphic-intensive, turning on the ‘Force 4x MSAA’ option in developer options will enhance the display graphic quality of your phone. However, if your phone’s graphic processing unit is not high enough, you may face some problems when this option is enabled.
USB debugging
You can enable or disable USB debugging in your phone via developer options. This option allows your device to receive commands and files from a computer. Not only this, you can install custom read only memory and settings onto your android device by USB debugging.
However, it is not wise to leave this option on because of security reasons, so turn it off once the work is done. You simply need to turn the slider button that says ‘USB debugging’ ON.
Set desktop backup password
If you choose to create a data backup of your android device over USB or on a desktop, you can protect the backup by a password. However, if you forget the password, the data cannot be accessed.
Mock location app
If there are online services or some apps that you may not want to disclose your location to, you can choose the ‘Mock location app’ in developer options. This allows you to discretely carry out functions online without any footprints.
Stay awake while charging
By turning on the ‘Stay awake’ option, your screen remains fully functional and doesn’t turn off while charging. This allows you to use your apps even while charging the phone. This will also make sure that all the functions that require screen activity can be carried out even when the phone is charging.
CPU usage
Turning On the ‘Show CPU usage’ option will show the exact system load on your device’s central processing unit in the last one, five, and fifteen minutes in a screen overlay on the top right corner of your screen. This is useful to diagnose speed problems and test efficiency of your device.
Running Processes
To find out which apps utilize the most RAM and to know exactly which apps are running in the background, you can view the ‘Running services’ option. Tap this option to know services in use and cached services to take decisions as to which apps to keep in your phone.
Install apps on SD card
Using this option you can install apps directly to your SD card if your android device’s internal storage is less. Many apps do not allow this. Therefore, you can switch on the ‘Force allow apps on external’
Limit background processes
If you find that many apps are utilizing extra space and memory than the limit your device can run smoothly at, you can limit the processes that run in the background from the ‘Limit background processes’ option.
Someone who does not know much about technology may get perplexed with the developer options at first. However, once you get to know how to reach the developer settings menu, the work becomes easy.
Correctly using developer options can save you time and energy in performing multiple tasks on your android device. Also, you come to know about the hidden potential of your device by knowing what developer options do.
