On Android, the Settings app has this hidden area called Developer options. If you’re working with apps, this section lets you tweak a bunch of system settings to help you debug and get a feel for how your app is running. Stuff like turning on USB debugging, grabbing bug reports, making taps visible on screen, flashing windows when the UI updates—there’s a lot you can customize here, even switching to GPU rendering for 2D graphics.
Enable Developer options
Getting Developer options to show up is pretty easy. If you’re on Android 4.1 or lower, it’s already there. On anything newer, you have to “unlock” it first. Just look for the Build number in the Settings app. Depending on your device, it’ll be tucked away in different spots:
For Google Pixel phones, go to Settings > About phone > Build number.
Pixel Watch, head to Settings > System > About > Versions > Build number.
On Samsung Galaxy phones (S8 and up), it’s Settings > About phone > Software information > Build number.
LG, HTC, OnePlus—they all nest it under About phone somewhere.
Once you find it, tap Build number seven times. You’ll see a little message pop up: “You are now a developer!” After that, Developer options show up at the bottom of the previous settings menu. You can toggle them on or off right up top.
If you’re planning on debugging your app using something like Android Studio, you’ll need to turn on USB debugging. You’ll find this in the Developer options, but the exact path depends on your Android version. For newer stuff, it’s usually Settings > System > Advanced > Developer Options > USB debugging, or something similar. For Wi-Fi debugging, it’s under Wireless debugging in Developer options. Once you turn that on, follow the instructions to pair your device with your development computer.
You can also make some developer shortcuts easier to reach. In Developer options, tap Quick settings developer tiles. Pick the ones you want, then open your Quick Settings panel, hit the pencil icon, and drag the developer tiles into place.
There are a bunch of other handy options here, too:
Memory lets you see how much RAM your device and apps are using.
Take bug report lets you capture log files to share.
System UI demo mode helps you take clean screenshots with a generic status bar (especially useful if you don’t want notifications shown).
Desktop backup password sets a password for backing up and restoring apps via adb.
Stay awake keeps your screen from sleeping while it’s plugged in.
Bluetooth HCI snoop log records Bluetooth communication for troubleshooting.
Debugging
Debugging options are where you fine-tune how your device talks to your computer. USB debugging is a must if you want to use adb. There’s also Wait for Debugger, which holds your app until the debugger attaches, and Select mock location app—which lets you test your app in different places by faking GPS.
For visual debugging, you can enable view attribute inspection, which saves view details you can see in the Layout Inspector. Hardware-level options, like GPU debug layers for Vulkan, are available on newer Android versions. For networking, you can set how USB works (charging only, file or photo transfer, internet sharing, MIDI, etc.), choose Bluetooth profiles, and tweak audio codec settings—everything from SBC and AAC to aptX and LDAC, plus sample rates and bit depth.
Wireless display certification, Wi-Fi logging, and aggressive Wi-Fi-to-cellular handover all give you more control over how your device handles networks.
If you want to record where you touch the screen, turn on Show taps. Pointer Location even tracks your finger’s path with crosshairs and coordinate data.
Drawing options help you visualize UI boundaries (Show Layout Bounds), force layouts to right-to-left or left-to-right, change animation speeds, and simulate secondary displays.
Hardware-accelerated rendering options let you experiment with color blindness simulations (Deuteranomaly, Protanomaly, Tritanomaly, Monochromacy), change GPU engines, force GPU rendering, and visualize overdraw (seeing how often your app redraws the same pixel). You can also enable MSAA for smoother graphics and manage hardware overlays.
For media, disabling USB audio routing makes sure your apps don’t get interrupted by external audio devices. From Android 11 on, apps requesting USB audio capture get a security warning—even if the user checked “always allow,” they have to approve it every time unless the app requests RECORD_AUDIO permission.
Debugging options help you set up your Android device for hands-on testing and development right from your computer.
Start by turning on USB debugging (see figure 3). With this on, your device can talk to your computer through the Android Debug Bridge (adb). Basically, this lets you send commands and move data back and forth. The Wait for Debugger setting won’t show up until you use Select debug app to pick which app you want to debug. If you turn on Wait for Debugger, that app will launch, but pause right away and wait until the debugger connects before it does anything.
There are a few other useful tools here:
Want to save logs directly on your device? Just pick what you need—turn logs off, save everything, skip radio logs, or stick with kernel logs only.
Testing location features? Use Select mock location app. You’ll need a mock GPS app from the Play Store, then set it as your mock location provider. This lets you fake your device’s location, so you can see how your app reacts in different areas.
If you want a closer look at your app’s layout, figure 4 shows off view attributes.
Switch on view attribute inspection, and your app starts storing attribute info in something called mAttributes inside each View. This means you can check out all the details later in the Layout Inspector. If you leave this off, you won’t have access to the Attributes section.
On Android 9 or higher, you can enable GPU debug layers. This lets you load Vulkan validation layers straight from local storage. If you want more details, Google has plenty of extra documentation to explore.
Monitoring
Monitoring is all about performance. You can profile GPU rendering speed, display it as bars for quick review, and look for bottlenecks.
For app behavior, Background process limit lets you restrict how many apps run in the background. ShortcutManager rate-limiting can be reset for testing shortcuts. Don’t keep activities destroys activities as soon as the user leaves, saving battery but making multitasking rough. And you can disable screen share protections if you need to test or demo sensitive content—just don’t leave it enabled.
Basically, if you’re into tinkering or developing, Developer options is a goldmine. Just be careful—changing the wrong setting can impact performance
Monitoring options provide visual information about app performance, such as long thread and GPU operations.
Tap Profile GPU Rendering and then On screen as bars to display the GPU rendering profile as bars, as shown in figure 9. For more information,
