How to enable Developer Options on Xiaomi Redmi Android devices

I bought a Xiaomi Redmi 4 Android device recently, my second Xiaomi device after the Xiaomi Mi4c that I bought some time ago.

Both devices come with Xiaomi's MIUI system that customizes quite a few things on the device. One of the things that I like to do on Android devices is to enable Developer Mode as it gives me access to a number of important features and options that are not available otherwise.

One of the features that Developer Mode gives you access to is USB Debugging Mode for instance which Android developers use to debug applications on their devices among other things.

But Developer Mode offers more than that. It may reveal options to unlock the bootloader, disable screen going into power saving mode when the device charges, limit background processes, display cpu utilization on the screen, or switch applications from active to inactive mode (may run in background, is not allowed to run in background).

Developer Mode on Xiaomi Redmi devices

It is pretty easy to enable Developer Mode on Xiaomi Redmi devices (and most other Xiaomi devices). There is no visible option for that in the Settings or anywhere else though, and if you try to figure it out on your own, you may never discover the option unless you have enabled it on a previous Android device.

Note: You get a prompt to enable USB Debugging each time you connect the Android device via USB to a computer after you enable Developer Mode.

What you need to do depends on the Android device. On Redmi devices, you need to open the Settings, and then the About phone page when the Settings open.

There you need to locate the MIUI version entry, and tap on it a number of times. The device will respond eventually to the tapping by counting down the number of remaining taps until developer mode is enabled on the device.

Note that you need to do this once only, and not each time you want to access the developer options on the device.

Visit Settings > Additional Settings > Developer Options afterwards to manage the new settings that are now available to you.

The page that opens list all available Developer Options. You may enable USB Debugging on the page, block applications from running in the background, or modify other settings.

The following options are provided currently:

• Stay Awake -- Don't turn off the display when connected via USB.
• Skip screen lock -- Go to Home from wake.
• Bluetooth HCI snoop log -- Capture all Bluetooth HCI packets in a file.
• Bluetooth Trace log
• OEM unlocking -- Allow the bootloader to be unlocked.
• Mi Unlock status -- Check the device locking status.
• USB Debugging -- Enable USB Debugging.
• Revoke USB Debugging authorizations
• Install via USB -- Allow apps to be installed via USB.
• USB Debugging (security settings).
• Select mock location app.
• Enable view attribute inspection.
• Select debug app.
• Wait for debugger.
• Verify apps over USB.
• Logger buffer sizes.
• Wireless Display Certification -- show options.
• Enable Wi-Fi Verbose Logging.
• Aggressive Wi-Fi to cellular handover.
• Always allow Wi-Fi Roam scans.
• Use legacy DHCP client.
• Cellular data always active.
• Select USB configuration.
• Show Touches and/or pointer location on screen.
• Show surface updates.
• Show layout bounds.
• Force RTL layout direction.
• Window animation scale.
• Transition animation scale.
• Animator duration scale.
• Simulate secondary displays.
• Force GPU rendering.
• Show GPU view updates.
• Show hardware layer updates.
• Debug GPU overdraw.
• Debug non-rectangular clip operations.
• Force 4x MSAA
• Disable HW overlays.
• Simulate color space.
• Disable USB audio rooting.
• Strict mode enabled.
• Show CPU usage.
• Profile GPU rendering.
• Enable OpenGPL trace.
• Don't keep activities.
• Background process limit.
• Memory optimization.
• Show all ANrs.
• Inactive apps -- Set which apps may run in the background.
• Force-closed apps.
• Turn on MIUI optimization.
• Record background ANR cases.
• Record ANR intervals.
• Turn on ANR debugging.

Most of the options are only interesting for developers. Some however are useful to all users of the device as they give you control over background app behavior and other things that you cannot control otherwise.

Now You: Have you enabled the Developer Options on your smartphone?

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