How To Turn Off Safe Mode On Android
You’re here because you’re wondering how to escape the prison that Safe Mode puts your Android phone in. Safe Mode was designed for the technically-apt users to troubleshoot their phones and (hopefully) fix problems or bugs that they were experiencing. Unfortunately, it’s also quite easy to enter Safe Mode on accident, and sometimes software bugs will even boot your phone straight into Safe Mode (although, that is more of a rare occurrence). And while it might be easy to enter Safe Mode on accident, it’s certainly not easy to get out of the Safe Mode loop that Android puts you in.
If you’re finally tired of trying to figure out how to exit safe mode, we’ll show you how you can exit it and continue using your phone normally.
Why Am I In Safe Mode Anyway?
There are a number of reasons why your phone could be in Safe Mode. The first and most likely is that an application went haywire, messed with the system framework, and now needs to be uninstalled while in Safe Mode to prevent any further harm to the phone’s operating system. The other most common reason is through pressing the button sequence. Yes, you can boot into Safe Mode with a similar process to butt dialing.
A less common reason, though a much more explainable reason, would be because of malware or other types of viruses harming your system. Generally, Android devices are safe from malware because of the sandbox design; however, malware can still get through the cracks and try to cause some serious system damage. Android can automatically boot into Safe Mode to try and get rid of the malware and problem altogether.
Safe Mode is there as a diagnostic solution to allow the troubleshooter to get into the system and try and fix the problem. Safe Mode is basically a bare bones framework that still allows troubleshooters and technicians to boot into the phone, even after the main operating system is compromised for one reason or another.
How to get out of Safe Mode
Booting out of Safe Mode is actually quite easy. Simply hold your power button down to shut off the smartphone. Leave it for a few seconds before turning it back on. Once you power it back on, it should boot to Android normally. If not, there are some other methods we can try.
Soft Reset
Most smartphones come with a method for a soft reset, a way to reset your smartphone without losing any data. It’s as simple as holding down the power button and volume down key at the same time — this should reboot the phone, bringing you out of Safe Mode, clearing your cache, and doing some other under-the-hood things to speed up your phone.
Remove the Battery
You can also try and remove the battery to boot out of Safe Mode. This will turn the phone off, obviously. But, it can also function as a “reset” method. Once you put the battery back in, go ahead and power on the phone, and you should have hopefully booted back into the normal Android system. It’s worth noting there’s only a few phones now that allow you to remove the battery, and these are mostly LG branded phones that do.
Troubleshoot Apps
If your phone isn’t booting out of Safe Mode, you probably have an underlying issue. That said, we need to do some troubleshooting. Try and remember what applications you installed around the time the problem started happening. Remove those applications.
In Safe Mode, removing applications can be a little different. Some phones won’t let you hold down on an application on your home screen to remove it. You have to go into Settings > Apps and then select the application you want to uninstall. After the application is uninstalled, go ahead and restart your phone, whether normally or through the Soft Reset process.
Factory Reset
Lastly, it might be down to a Factory Reset. If you haven’t been able to boot out of Safe Mode through any of the above steps, there’s, unfortunately, something wrong with the system itself. It’s likely that malware or some sort of virus got into the system-level of your phone and messed something up with the software. Due to that, Android is detecting a problem and is keeping you in Safe Mode to keep it from getting worse or compromising data and privacy.
After a factory reset, you will have to reinstall all of your applications. Photos, videos, documents, and other data will all be lost, as there’s not really a way to back them up in Safe Mode. However, it’s the only way to get your phone back.
Next, head into Settings > Reset > Reset to factory defaults. The naming convention might be different from phone brand to phone brand, but the process is similar, all accessible from the Settings app.
Verdict
As you can see, it’s quite easy to get out of Safe Mode, unless you start trying to get out of it and discover that there’s more of an underlying problem as to why you can’t get out of Safe Mode. You can at least take solace in the fact that your phone isn’t broken, and you can go back to normal use after a factory reset.