Android has a safe mode from Jelly Bean, with a behavior similar to that of windows safe mode: load the minimum necessary so you can solve possible problems on your mobile.
Android’s safe mode is a great ally for diagnose and solve problems no need to make a factory restoration to erase all your data. Here we tell you what is the safe mode of Android, how you can activate it and how you can remove the safe mode, if you have activated it by mistake.
What is Android Safe Mode
Android safe mode is a special boot mode whereby only the system and pre-installed applications are loaded. Any applications that you installed later are not available in safe mode.
Safe mode loads only the basics: the system and pre-installed apps
In some layers the apps not available they are shown in gray, while in others -including pure Android- the icons of the unavailable apps are not directly shown.
It is easy to recognize the safe mode of Android as the text is shown superimposed in the lower left corner Safe Mode, being always visible even if you open other applications. If your mobile shows this text and you do not remember having activated it yourself, it can sometimes happen that it restarts in this mode from your pocket with an accidental strategic press of the buttons.
Safe mode only loads the basics, though it’s a temporary mode. That is, even if only a handful of pre-installed applications are available to you, the mobile will return to normal as soon as you restart in normal mode.
The only exception to this rule is in the widget settings. Google warn that by entering safe mode you could lose some widgets from third-party apps in the launcher even after restarting in normal mode. Google recommends that you take a screenshot of your widgets before entering safe mode to remember where they are.
What is Android safe mode for?
Android safe mode is primarily used for diagnosis and troubleshooting, especially those caused by an erroneous configuration or by an application that the user has installed.
Basically, it is something like factory reset the mobile but without losing all your data. Instead of deleting your data, it is simply not accessible during that session and will not be accessible again until you restart the mobile in normal mode.
In this way you can use the safe mode when your mobile does not work well to know if the problem is with the device or one of the applications that you installed. If everything works correctly in safe mode then it is more than likely that one of the latest apps you installed is the culprit for your problems.
How to restart Android in safe mode
There are two standard ways to restart an Android device in safe mode, depending on whether we start with the device on or off. From the device on, it is done with a long press of the power button until the shutdown menu appears and then making a long tap on Power off. A warning will then be displayed where you must confirm that you want to restart in safe mode.
If the mobile is off, there is a way to start it directly in safe mode without going through the previous steps. To do this, you need to press the power button and hold the volume down button while the charging animation is displayed. Hold it down until the animation ends and Android starts up in safe mode.
This is the standard way to restart in safe mode and it is the one that you should use on mobiles with pure Android, Android One or similar, but the highly custom layers like EMUI may have a slightly different method.
On Huawei phones, you enter safe mode in another way To enter the safe mode on a Huawei mobile, generally you must start the mobile off and simultaneously press the buttons power on and volume up until a special menu with various options including Safe Mode is displayed. Tapping on it will restart the mobile in this mode.
How to remove safe mode from Android
While there are a number of ways to get into safe mode on Android, what everyone has agreed on is how to get out of it. As we mentioned before, safe mode is a temporary state, so you just have to restart the mobile to get out of it.
That is, if your mobile is in safe mode right now, you have to press and hold the power button until the shutdown menu is displayed and tap on Restart. If you have a mobile with an old version of Android without the restart button then you must turn it off and then turn it on again.
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The news
What is Android safe mode, what is it for, how is it activated and how to get out of it
was originally published in
Xataka Android
by
Ivan Ramirez
.
