Advanced Reboot Menu of the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T gives you a much faster way to boot into special boot modes like Recovery Mode and Bootloader Mode.
The concept of the Advanced Reboot Menu is not new, and we’ve had this with custom ROMs and Xposed Modules in the past. This is actually one of the features that I look for when checking out a new custom ROM on a smartphone or tablet. When writing up guides for a device, I like to start by showing you how to boot into special modes like Recovery Mode and Fastboot/Bootloader Mode manually.
This why I teach you ADB/Fastboot commands too instead of just linking to a toolkit.
But as you can see in the videos that I do later on, I almost always use the OnePlus 3 Advanced Reboot Menu (or an app like Simple Reboot) since it takes less time and not everyone enjoys long videos. I’ve been asked about this feature multiple times so I thought it would be a good idea to write up a guide on it. The process is quite simple and much like other features, you just need to know the feature is available and where it is located on the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T.
Advanced Reboot Menu on the OnePlus 3
- Enable Developer Mode on the OnePlus 3
- Launch the Settings application
- Scroll down and tap on the Developer Options option
- Look for and enable the Advanced Reboot option
- Tap the Home button to go back to the Home Screen
Explanation
So again, the process is very simple and the only thing holding most people back will be the hidden Developer Options menu. Follow the steps of the guide linked in step 1 above and that will walk you through how to make the hidden Developer Options menu appear in the Settings application. Once that is enabled, you can then launch the Settings application (or simply go back to the main menu of the Settings application) and then scroll all the way down to the bottom.
If done right, you should see a new option here called Developer Options. There are a lot of things in there and most will not mess up your device in any bad way. At least not in any way that you can’t go back in there and change the setting back to what it was at previously. So you should generally be safe experimenting with options in this menu, but just be aware of what you’re tinkering with so you know how to change it back to how it was in case you don’t like it.
Once you enter the Developer Options area, you should only need to scroll down a little bit until you see the Advanced Reboot toggle. This is off by default and it just takes a simple tap to turn it on. Once you have this feature turned on, you can simply tap on the Home button and that will take you back to the Home Screen. With this feature enabled, you can test it out by pressing and holding down on the physical Power button.
This will bring up the regular Power Menu, and it will look the same as it normally does. However, you’ll want to tap on the Reboot option and then this will bring up the Advanced Reboot Menu. So normally, you would just see the Reboot button appear again after tapping it, and then you’d want to tap it to reboot the OnePlus 3 or OnePlus 3T. However, with the Advanced Reboot Menu enabled, you’ll see the regular Reboot option, a Recovery option and then a Bootloader option.
So not only do you have the option to just do a regular reboot to the OnePlus 3, but you can also reboot directly into either Recovery Mode or Bootloader Mode (which is also known as Fastboot Mode) from here. It really is a convenient feature if you find yourself booting into one of these special boot modes semi-regularly.
