How to enter safe mode on Android devices

Safe mode is a great tool that allows you to figure out whether or not a third-party app is responsible for the problems you may be experiencing with your smartphone. These include things like overheating, automatically rebooting multiple times a day, crashing, and more.

So, how exactly can safe mode help? Well, when you boot your device into safe mode, all third-party apps are disabled, while those that are pre-installed still work (YouTube, Gmail…). If the issue you’re experiencing goes away while in safe mode, you can be sure that one of the third-party apps is responsible for it.

The only problem is that it might not be obvious which one is the culprit, as you can’t disable just one app. Nevertheless, you can figure out which app was installed right before the issue started and get rid of it from your device, which should solve the problem.

Entering safe mode is an easy task to complete and won’t take more than a minute of your time. Check out the short instructions on how to enter safe mode below.

How to enter safe mode

So you want to know how to enter safe mode? It’s actually pretty easy. To enter safe mode, just press and hold the power button, just like you would when turning off the device. Once the power off icon pops up on your screen, tap and hold it for a second or two, select OK, and just wait for the device to reboot. That’s it.

When the device turns back on, you’ll see a “Safe Mode” badge in the bottom left part of the screen, and all third-party apps will be grayed out.

Step by step instructions:

Step 1: Press and hold the power button.

Step 2: Tap and hold the power off icon that appears on your screen.

Step 3: Tap OK once the safe mode option pops up and wait for the device to reboot.

In case the issue still persists while in safe mode, there’s a good chance that it’s being caused by hardware and not software. If that’s the case, you should consider sending your device in for a repair.

So you now know how to enter safe mode. But what if you accidentally launched it and want to get back out? To learn exactly how to do that, check out our “How to Turn Off Safe Mode” post.