deep down within the system settings
there's a secret hidden menu called the
developer options and this menu is
filled with juicy valuable features that
most people don't even know exists for
example you know when you connect your
phone to the computer and you need to do
the annoying process of dropping down
the status bar and selecting the bottom
notification just to change the usb
preference to transfer files why do we
need to do all that well within the
developer options there's a setting
called default usb configuration and
that lets you select file transfer as
your default choice so now whenever you
connect your phone to the computer your
files will automatically pop up without
needing to do those extra steps another
excellent feature is that if you have an
app that doesn't support split screen
mode like instagram you can still force
it to open it in split screen anyway by
enabling force activities to be
resizable within the developer options
that's just two useful features found
within this vast list of developer
options and in this video i'll be
explaining each setting not missing a
single one and what i would recommend
modifying for a better smartphone
experience i promise you that there is
no other video form page ready or
article that explains every single
developer option setting in great detail
all at once they may just show off some
of their favorite options but not
explain every single setting in there so
if you were ever curious about what a
specific option did in this menu this is
the best video guide i even time stamped
each section properly according to how
the developer options are organized so
that if you just want to jump to that
specific section for a specific setting
you can do so so make sure to save this
video for future reference drop a thumbs
up if you change a setting and get
subscribed with the notification bell
turned on if i made you change two or
more here we try to stand out from the
competition by making videos that no one
else wants to make and i do it for you
guys now let's jump into rock bottom and
figure out what those weird toggles
actually do
[Music]
i still can't read the sign
i want to go home
now the first thing i have to do is show
you how to enable the developer options
it varies between most phones but
usually within the system settings you
scroll down to the bottom tap on about
phone scroll down again until you see
build number and tap it seven times
it'll have you confirm your passcode and
then you'll receive a toast message that
says you're now a developer from there
go back to the previous screen tap on
system and then there it is developer
options now depending on what android
version you're running and what oem you
have your developer options could be a
bit different from mine you could have a
few more toggles or a few missing
toggles it all depends on what phone
you're using for those curious i'll be
explaining the developer options with my
google pixel 5 running android 12 beta
4. now the first option at the top is
called memory and it's pretty
self-explanatory it tells you how much
memory your phone has and the average
amount of time that is being used it's
not in real time but it does tell you
the average memory used for the past 3
hours or you can change it to 6 hours 12
hours or 1 full day not only that but
you can even see what apps are consuming
your memory usually it's system apps but
diving in deeper you can tap on any of
them to see how frequently they're using
your memory and their maximum usage on
the rare occasion that there is a pesky
memory leaching app that you rarely ever
use i recommend uninstalling it however
if you like to see your memory running
in real time scroll down a bit further
and you'll see an option called running
services here you'll see what apps and
services are currently running in the
background if you find a service that is
taking up too much memory you can
quickly terminate it capturing bugs is
mainly a developer thing but if you're
ever experiencing any issues with an app
or maybe even your system interface then
you can use bug report found within the
developer options to capture these bugs
so that you can send them to the
developers so that they can fix the
problem the bug report feature will keep
a log of every action that you begin to
do and it'll even capture the issue
you're experiencing to share the bug
report you just tap on the notification
pretty easy and it really helps
developers find issues faster
plus within the developer options if you
scroll down even further you can have
the bug report button appear in your
power menu for easier access
by default the bug reports don't show
your device specific vendors such as
samsung oneplus google etc but you can
add this additional information in your
bug reports by enabling
verbose vendored logging within the
developer options it just helps out the
developer by letting him know what phone
manufacturer you have you can also
determine which app handles the bug
report shortcut on your device so since
i'm on a beta version of android 12 i
changed the bug report handler to the
android beta feedback option basically
reporting bugs directly to the google
team that is working on android 12. they
also created a feedback app that does a
really great job of making it easy for
anyone to report an issue they're having
with an app or the interface
moving on most of you probably don't
know this but you can backup your
phone's data and app data onto your
computer with a simple adb command
called adb backup dash all
and whatever directory your command
prompt is set to it'll save this backup
as a file called backup.ab
if a date comes that you need to restore
it then you type in adb restore along
with the file path in which the
backup.ab file is located in simple just
make sure you have adb installed on your
computer and usb debugging enabled and
that's pretty much it also within the
developer options you can even set a
password to encrypt these full desktop
backups under the menu called desktop
backup passwords the stay awake toggle
keeps your phone awake indefinitely
while you charge it until you manually
press the lock key enable bluetooth hci
snoop log will not call up snoop dogg to
perform at your birthday party instead
it's a lot more boring than that and
mainly for developers just like the bug
report feature this will create a log of
your bluetooth usage over time oem
unlocking is one of the most important
toggles within the developer options
when you enable this you're allowing
your bootloader to become unlocked after
you do a simple adb command and from
there the possibilities are endless
since you can obtain root and do things
like install custom roms obtain magisk
manager for a bunch of awesome
modifications and a lot more webview
implementation just lets you choose
between a different webview app and for
those who don't know what webview is
it's basically an in-app browser
whenever you tap on a link within an app
such as twitter or instagram that
webview app gets used personally the
default android system webview works
just fine so i just stick with that next
some devices have an advanced reboot
option which is really useful for anyone
who is rooted since you can quickly jump
into the recovery or bootloader through
the power menu
automatic system updates just lets you
automatically apply any available
software updates whenever your phone
restarts dsu loader is strictly for
developers who want to test their apps
on stock android since it lets them
install the latest gsi from google
without needing to input any adb or
fastboot commands
system ui demo mode is what i like to
use in most of my videos since it cleans
up my status bar by removing any
notification icons keeping the time the
same and it matches the android version
number plus my battery level is always
at a beautiful 100 percent so no
distractions on what notifications i
received quick settings developer tiles
is self-explanatory it allows you to put
some of the settings found within your
developer options into your quick
settings panel a lot of them are meant
for developers but the two that i like
to use are sensors off and wireless
debugging sensors off disables almost
every sensor on your phone including the
cameras gps and microphone perfect for
staying private
while wireless debugging lets you
connect your phone to your command
prompt wirelessly so that you can
quickly launch any adb command so i can
literally install apps reboot my phone
launch into the bootloader and a lot
more without needing a cable you just
have to make sure your phone and
computer are connected to the same wi-fi
network the connection is a hit or miss
situation though the most reliable way
is still by using a usb cable
now before i continue to other sections
filled with other very useful features i
wanted to show up a fantastic chrome
extension slash app that makes finding
reliable information a lot faster and
easier it's called liner and they are
the sponsor of this video check this out
whenever i jump into a web page or a pdf
file liner lets me highlight any text
that i deem important and even if i
refresh the page the highlighting stays
there it's just like when you highlight
in a book the fun doesn't stop there
though i can also add any comments to
organize my thoughts
share with anyone who isn't even using
liner add tags for easier retrievals and
each highlight gets automatically saved
so that i can quickly find it later
within my highlights it's a fantastic
tool that's helped me stay organized and
consistent with my research plus you can
take your highlights on the go when you
download their free app from the play
store or app store it works just like
the chrome extension and has most of the
same highlighting features
but that's not even the best part
because with liner you can mark and
comment on any critical moments within a
youtube video so that later on you can
quickly jump to it
now tell me that's not the coolest thing
you've ever seen the mobile app will
also soon receive this youtube
highlighting feature as well which i'm
also pumped about as if that wasn't
enough liner also makes your google
searches a lot more reliable and
personal whenever you search for
anything a mint bar appears next to the
pages that liner recommends this is
extremely useful since the
recommendations are based on the number
of total highlights made from other
users on the page the mobile app will
also receive this google search
assistant feature in the future plus
within liner's platform they have a for
you section and a search engine which
lists out content of your interest that
you may have missed making it easier to
get recommendations for things you
couldn't find with a google search so if
you like an easier way to find reliable
information and keep track of it
whenever you read an article pdf or
watch a video download liner now on both
your desktop and smartphone through the
link in the description whenever you
grant usb debugging access to any
computer then anyone can just control
your phone without needing to unlock it
so if you don't want that make sure to
tap on revoke usb debugging
authorizations within the developer
options so that any previous computer
authorizations get revoked
now in the future those same computers
will need you to unlock the phone again
to grant it access
finally by default any adb
authorizations get automatically revoked
after seven days of not reconnecting to
your computer but if you like to disable
this timeout just toggle on disable adb
authorization timeout
if you ever want to spook your current
location you can do so with select mock
location app you just need to download
an app like fake gps location from the
play store to get this to work
forceful gnss measurements are just for
developers who want to accurately
calculate positions within apps by
continuously tracking satellites
the enable view attribute inspection is
just for developers to help them debug
their apps select debug app is also for
app developers to help debug their app
individually without using long adb
commands or a debugger so there's no
need to mess with these two previous
options also wait for debugger is an
option that attaches the above debugged
app instantly when a debugger is
detected whenever you install an app
with the usb through adb commands google
will scan it to make sure that it's not
infected with malicious content you just
need to make sure that verify apps over
usb is enabled and your installed app
should be safe but if you're trying to
install a reliable app over usb and it's
not working try disabling this toggle
but only disable it if you know the app
doesn't have any malicious code within
it the verify by code of debuggable apps
toggle that's mouthful is a little more
complicated but just leave it enabled if
you must know this toggle allows
android's runtime to verify the bytecode
for apps that you install when you
record audio your microphones need a
miniscule amount of time to analyze the
sounds coming into your phone
the time is referred to as buffer size
and within the developer options you can
choose the logger size of each buffer
but honestly unless you're in big time
audio file i wouldn't mess with it you
know those experimental features found
within google chrome labeled as flags
while feature flags within the developer
options is pretty much the same concept
it was heavily used back in android 10
and 11 to enable apple features that the
google team were still testing and
working as of now it's not currently
active in android 12 beta 4 but just
keep an eye on this menu if you ever
update to a beta software gpu debug
layers is yet another feature that is
only for game developers so there's no
need to enable it
if you're a big gamer you may be able to
improve your gaming experience with
graphics driver preferences in this menu
you can select the graphics driver on a
perhaps basis personally for every game
that i had i just selected system
graphics driver as my preference it's
useful if your phone doesn't come with a
gaming mode installed like the pixel
devices running android 11 otherwise you
don't really need to modify this menu
new api features get released for
applications whenever the android os
gets updated and developers usually need
to run adb commands to test them out
however since android 11 a new sub menu
in the developer options called app
compatibility changes makes it really
easy to quickly toggle new platform
behavior changes instead of typing many
adb commands it saves that developers a
ton of time
if your phone has a 90 or 120hz display
chances are not every app or screen is
running at those high refresh rates they
most likely drop at 60 hertz to save
battery life my pixel 5 for example
drops to 60 hertz whenever i'm not
interacting with the screen or when i'm
in the camera app
how do i know this well a toggle called
show refresh rate lets me know for the
apps that have the permission called
display over other apps you can also
have them show their floating windows
when you're in the system settings you
just need to enable allow screen to
overlays on settings and also for those
curious i'm using an app called floating
apps for this demonstration not everyone
has this toggle called force peak
refresh rate but if you do enabling it
will force your display to always stay
at the maximum refresh rate no matter
what app you use so in my case my pixel
5 no longer drops down to 60 hertz it
may seem like an awesome toggle but your
battery life is going to suffer system
tracing is just for app developers it
lets them collect system activity to
learn about what's going on with the
device and how they can improve
performance when their app is being run
now we're getting into the networking
section the first option called wireless
displayed certification is only useful
if you own a mirror cast support display
the next option wi-fi verbose logging
lets you keep a more advanced logging of
your wi-fi connections and network
signal strength nothing fancy here wi-fi
scan throttling helps save your battery
life and improves the network
performance by limiting how often apps
can scan for wi-fi in other words this
option is there so apps cannot just scan
for wi-fi whenever they want that would
be terrible to be more precise
foreground apps can only run four wi-fi
scans every two minutes while background
apps can only run a scan every 30
minutes so just leave it on wi-fi
non-persistent mac randomization causes
your device to change the mac address
each time you connect to a wi-fi network
it's just for privacy reasons so that
your device doesn't use the same mac
address for everything i actually toggle
this on the next option called mobile
data always active keeps your wireless
data connection always on even when
you're connected to wi-fi and the only
reason they do this is for faster
network switching but honestly it's a
huge battery trainer if you live outside
of the us i would definitely recommend
turning it off but if you live in the us
you probably shouldn't because if you're
like me you probably still use mms
because of iphone users and having this
toggle off will make it so that you
won't be able to send or download mms
messages when you're on wi-fi
tethering hardware acceleration is a bit
more complicated to explain but
essentially on supported devices and
support networks the android os will use
hardware instead of software for
tethering your data connection to other
devices and will ask the hardware to
manage it it's a more efficient method
and saves you battery when using
tethering however i'm not 100 sure what
phones support this feature my guess is
if the toggle isn't enabled by default
then your device is most likely not
supported still i personally enabled it
on my pixel 5 just in case because if it
does work then why not save that battery
whenever you try to pair to a new
bluetooth device your phone
automatically finds the name of the
devices so that you can more easily
identify them but some bluetooth devices
get hidden by the android os it's
usually those that don't have names just
mac addresses and on some rare occasions
this can lead you to not being able to
find the bluetooth device that you're
trying to pair well if you enable show
bluetooth devices without names in the
developer options then every bluetooth
device including those with just mac
addresses will appear when you try to
pair it's just like enabling the show
hidden files and folders option within
windows 10. by default when connected
your phone and bluetooth device both
control the same volume level generally
this is convenient because who likes
messing with two separate volume levels
but in some rare occasions this can
cause some volume issues or lack of
control so if you turn on disable
absolute volume you'll then be able to
separate the two you can set your
bluetooth device's volume to an
acceptable level then use your phone's
volume buttons for fine tune adjustments
it comes in handy if you have an overly
loud speaker
as if the settings could have gotten
even more bizarre there's an option
called enable gable doors this enables
google's new upcoming bluetooth stack
called gable dorsch before andrew relied
on the fluoride stack now they're trying
to transition to a new stack called
gable dorche it's going to help improve
the security and reliability of
bluetooth connections as of now i'm not
sure if it even works though because
there hasn't been any word from google
on this setting for over a year so just
leave it off the next couple of
bluetooth options are really just there
if you're experiencing any bluetooth
issues not just with one bluetooth
device but with any device that your
phone connects to it's really rare and
usually only occurs when you update to
an alpha or beta version of a software
or you just get a new phone that got
released that same month and the
software is not fully stable yet if
you're experiencing bluetooth issues
then the last resort would be to hop
into the developer options and try to
activate disable bluetooth a2dp hardware
offload another option would be to lower
the bluetooth av rcp version number or
higher the map version one at a time
though and as always when you modify
these things make sure to reboot each
time to activate the change of course
i'm not saying this will solve the
problem you're having but it's worth a
shot
moving on if you like to make sure that
those wireless earbuds or bluetooth
speaker have the best possible sound
profile then within the developer
options there's something called
bluetooth audio codec and in this menu
you can select an even better profile if
it's available if you're on android 11
or higher your phone will automatically
disable any codecs that your bluetooth
device doesn't support once you're
connected generally speaking aac already
provides really great sound quality so
if you have that option choose it sbc is
the lowest audio quality so try to avoid
that qualcomm aptx hd audio is just as
good as aac with some saying it provides
even better quality and finally ldac is
sony's proprietary bluetooth streaming
codec which provides the highest quality
so if you have that option i envy you
and definitely go with that plus you can
increase the sampling rate audio bits
and channel mode i personally didn't
have those options since my headphones
didn't support it but if you do try to
see what you can do within the input
section you can choose to show the taps
this is great when you're screen
recording anything and want to show the
person exactly what you're tapping on
pointer location draws a tracer line
showing a more precise drawing of where
the screen has been swiped that option
is definitely for developers and that's
it for the input section drawing section
is mostly just stuff for app developers
to help them make their apps more
compatible with other devices starting
with show surface updates this helps
developers see what part of their app is
doing work it does this by flashing the
screen rapidly shell layout bounds is
even fancier since it clearly marks
every border clip bound margin etc it's
used during the app development to
validate the positioning and alignment
of visual items on the screen if you'd
like to flip the entire screen from
right to left you can do so with force
rtl layout direction it's kind of weird
though and gives me a ton of brain farts
actually now i think about it it would
actually be a good prank on a friend
the following three options are the most
popular selections within the developer
options you can increase decrease or
just stop the window animation
transition animation and animator
duration i personally just keep those at
1x but i know that a few people like to
go with 0.5 x for the extra speed
simulate secondary displays does as the
title implies it enables a second screen
with your choice of resolution it's just
for developers so that they can see how
their app would look on different screen
sizes it's kind of cool and trippy
smallest width lets you change the
density independent pixels or dp of your
display so that you can have everything
be smaller or bigger some people even
like to make the dp even bigger to see
even more stuff at once on the screen
display cutout lets you hide your notch
or hole punch if your screen has one or
at least tries to but it's also used by
developers to make their apps more
compatible with different types of
displays
the hardware accelerated rendering
section is to help game developers
improve the games with the view updates
you can have parts of the screen flash
red whenever the gpu is operating an
object the hardware layers updates does
pretty much the same thing but it
differs by flashing a green light
whenever updates are made to the
hardware layers it helps the game
developers optimize the performance
whenever there is a severe amount of
green flashes the debug gpu overdraw
will tell you when the same place on the
screen has been drawn over multiple
times by different objects and it shows
you this by color coding the overdrawn
views it helps developers improve the
performance when using their app because
the fewer layers they have the faster
and more efficient their app is
override force dark is in my top three
favorite toggles found within the
developer options it forces most apps
that don't have a dark mode to have one
so apps like amazon google opinion
rewards and geeky bench 5 can now all
have a dark theme with a simple switch
of a button force 4x msaa is for gamers
to help them have better graphics and
improve the overall visual experience
but it does take up a lot of performance
and is a huge battery trainer so i
wouldn't enable this even if you are a
gamer i still wouldn't recommend it
because honestly we all know that it's
performance over looks when it comes to
competitive gaming disabled hardware
overlays is a bit more complicated to
explain basically in short every app
shares video memory and without a
hardware overlay they'll need to
constantly check for collision and
clipping costing a lot more cpu power so
just leave this option turned off
simulate color space is an option that
developers can use to see what their
apps would look like to colorblind users
it's pretty cool and you can also use
this to turn your screen black and white
in the media group there are only two
options the first one is for audio files
it disables automatic routing to usb
audio peripherals like a usb dock
and then the second option lets you
configure some options for when your
sound or video gets transcoded i
personally didn't touch these two
settings there are times when apps take
longer than usual to do operations
whether it be in the background or
foreground which can cause battery drain
well when you enable strict mode you'll
know exactly when this happens because
the screen will flash profile hw ui
rendering is pretty sick it allows you
to display a graph on the screen of how
the gpu is working under the hood in
real time so whenever you open an app or
run an animation you'll see the graph
shoot up the app section has by far the
best group of options in the developer
options this is where all the gold is at
the first option called don't keep
activities force closes every app you
leave which can seem like a good thing
and it is if you're looking at it from a
privacy standpoint but from a battery
standpoint this is a terrible option
since you're forced to close every app
you leave and the cpu will need to work
overtime whenever you open an app
because it'll never be on standby so i
would highly suggest leaving this option
off
the next option called background
process limit will allow you to choose
how many apps or processes are allowed
to run in the background and just like
with the previous option i wouldn't
change it because otherwise they only
allow you to choose at most four
processes like why so little
wait wait wait a minute
this ain't enough
make it enough
for whatever reason you could have some
apps preventing your phone from going
into a deep sleep it's rare but it
happens background check lets you
quickly find those pesky apps and you
can stop them with a switch of a button
if you don't see any in this menu you're
in the clear though remember back in the
day when an app that froze would bring
up a crash window that allowed you to
choose between closing the app or just
waiting well after the android 9.0
update google decided to remove it all
together and instead automatically crash
the app in some cases though that can be
annoying so if you'd like to bring back
that dialogue turn on always show crash
dialogue within the developer options
for apps that crash in the background
you'll need to instead enable show
background anrs this next option allows
you to freeze zap so that they can't use
any of the cpu cycles while they're
cached being that there are sometimes
misbehaving apps that may attempt to run
while being cached the suspend execution
for cached apps stops them and helps
reduce the power consumption greatly
that's why i had this option enabled the
notification channel warnings are just
for developers to make sure that their
apps are properly displaying
notifications so there's no need to
enable this if you're running under 12
you can prioritize some notifications
over others so that they always appear
at the top but if you like to reset the
notification importance you can do it
from the developer options
standby apps is a juicy setting here
you'll see a list of all your apps
installed and you can place each app
into a group there are five groups and
the higher and the happiest on the list
the more important it is for example
apps placed in the active activity are
at the highest level and don't have any
restrictions so they can keep
functioning as per their default
settings this includes apps like
messaging or the phone app working set
puts a medium level restriction but the
apps can keep functioning as usual this
can be apps like google maps or chrome
frequent puts stronger restrictions but
is still able to run i put some games in
this setting rare puts strict rules on
their ability to run in the background
receive messages and can't connect to
the internet while in the background and
restricted means that they just can't
run or do anything in the background at
all based on how you use your phone the
os will automatically determine which
profile is set on each app so you don't
really need to worry about this but if
you like to modify it for specific apps
you can do that this next one's pretty
useful if your phone has an sd card and
you try to install an app on it but it
doesn't work you can enable force allow
apps on external and this will force the
app to let you store it on the card that
way you can save space on your internal
memory believe it or not apps can become
floating windows on android so you can
literally be scrolling on your home
screen and have twitter be on top of the
screen to do this just turn on enable
freeform windows within the developer
options then within the recent menu tap
on the apps icon that you'd like to turn
into a window and tap on freeform it's a
bit difficult to resize the window but
you can do so by pulling the corners
it's a cool feature but it's pretty
useless says since you can't open
another app at the same time besides
your stock launcher
and you can't freeform another app
simultaneously your android could have a
desktop mode allowing you to run android
apps on the big screen in the developer
options you just need to enable force
desktop mode and from there with a type
c to hdmi cable you can connect your
phone to an external monitor and boom
there you have desktop mode just keep in
mind that this only works on phones that
support displayport alt mode not every
phone supports this including the pixel
5 so i'll leave a link with a partial
list of supported devices the shortcut
manager rate limiting option is
specifically for developers it resets
the rate limit to allow background apps
to continue to call shortcut apis until
the rate limit is reached again the
autofill section is by far the most
boring part of the developer options
it's just filled with a bunch of things
you will never touch unless you're a
developer working with the autofill
service starting with the login level
this is just a way of classifying
entries in a log file in terms of
urgency and android supports various log
levels including info warnings mirror
errors verbose and debug in the
developer options when keeping logs you
can choose between the debug type which
is standard or you can choose verbose
which provides more detailed information
the other two options below let the
developers set the maximum request for
the autofill service in one session and
the maximum visible data set plus you
can reset those values back to default
finally i'm not 100 sure what shared
data is since i couldn't find anything
on the internet about it but i'm
assuming that it's any data on your
phone that you're allowing to be shared
with a private or public server i could
be wrong though anyways that's every
single setting explained within the
developer options again there's no video
forum page ready or even an article that
has explained what each setting does in
one full setting so for that all i ask
is that you please drop a thumbs up also
if i helped you discover a setting or
two please consider subscribing here on
this channel is quality over quantity
either way thank you guys for watching
and i'll catch you guys in the next one
kapow
you