Galaxy S5: How to Boot into Safe Mode

Safe Mode is used to help determine if a 3rd party application is somehow interfering with your device. Today I’m going to show you what the Galaxy S5 Safe Mode is and how to boot into it.

3rd party applications for Android can be very powerful at times. This can be both a good and a bad thing. We all love the features and functions that some of our applications from the Google Play Store bring, but what about the downsides? These applications can chew through your battery life like there’s no tomorrow, they can affect the performance of your Galaxy S5 and they can even cause errors and issues with other apps/features as well.

Instead of uninstalling every single application on your device, Google has implemented a feature called Safe Mode that will help you to troubleshoot any issues that you might be having.

Booting the Galaxy S5 into Safe Mode will disable every 3rd party application that has been downloaded from the Google Play Store until you reboot the smartphone. So, for example, let’s say you are having issues with battery life or the performance is really sluggish. All you have to do is boot your Galaxy S5 into Safe Mode and monitor things while in this mode.

If you notice that the issue is resolved in Safe Mode, then there is most likely a 3rd party application that is the culprit. Now, the hard part is to find out which one it is. Thankfully though, at least you know it is a 3rd party application. So the next step would be to uninstall each of these applications(either one at a time or all at once) and then see if you can figure out which one is causing it. So, let’s find out how to boot the Galaxy S5 into Safe Mode.

Galaxy S5 Safe Mode

1. Power Down the Galaxy S5
2. Press and Hold the Power Button Until it Turns Back On
3. When You See the Samsung Logo, Immediately Start Holding the Volume Down Button
4. Continue Holding the Volume Down Button Until Your Galaxy S5 Complete Boots Up
5. When You See the Lock Screen, Let Go of the Volume Down Button

Explanation

In order to get your Galaxy S5 into Safe Mode, we first need to power down the device completely. Once the Galaxy S5 is off, you’ll want to turn it back on. As soon as you notice the smartphone has started to boot up(typically when you see the Samsung logo), you’ll want to let go of the Power button and then immediately start holding down the Volume Down button. Keep holding down the Volume Down button until you see the Lock Screen. Go ahead and unlock your Galaxy S5 like normal, and look at the Home Screen.

If you did everything correctly, you should see a “Safe Mode” watermark at the very bottom left of your screen. This is generally overlayed on top of whatever icons you have in that area. This indicates that you are in Safe Mode and that all 3rd party applications have been disabled. So, if you were experiencing an issue(such as excessive battery drain), use your smartphone like you normally would(minus 3rd party apps) and see if you continue to see the same issue. If not, then one of the 3rd party apps is the culprit. If it’s still present, then there seems to be something wrong with the core Android system and you might need to do a factory reset.

Once you are done with your testing and you want to exit Safe Mode, all you have to do is reboot the Galaxy S5 like you normally would. The only way to trigger Safe Mode is by holding the Volume Down button while Android boots. So, as long as you don’t do that, you will boot right back up into the standard Android system for the Galaxy S5.