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?
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?