Make Android Phone Faster with Developer Options

How to Make Your Android Phone Feel Faster with Developer Options

Does your Android phone ever feel a little slow when opening apps or switching between screens? Sometimes the feeling of slowness isn’t about raw power, but about the little animations that make things look pretty. Learn how to speed up these animations to make your entire phone feel snappier and more responsive.

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I’ll show you a simple trick hidden in the “Developer Options” menu that can make a big difference. We used a Sony Xperia 1V running Android 14 for this guide.

How to Unlock Developer Options

First, you need to unlock a hidden menu called “Developer Options.” It’s easier than it sounds.

Open the Settings app on your phone.
Scroll down to the bottom and tap on About phone.
On this menu, find the entry that says Build number.
Tap on “Build number” seven times in a row.
After a few taps, you’ll see a message that says “You are now a developer!” or something similar. That’s it! The menu is now unlocked.

The Steps to Speed Up Animations

Now that you’re a developer, let’s change those animation settings.

Go back to the main Settings menu.
Scroll down and tap on System.
Inside System, you will now see a new option called Developer options. Tap on it.
In the Developer menu, scroll down until you find the Drawing section.
Here, you will see three important settings:
- Window animation scale
- Transition animation scale
- Animator duration scale
Each one is probably set to 1x. Tap on each one and change it to .5x (that’s half the normal speed).

Why This Simple Change Works

Your phone uses these little animations to transition smoothly between apps, menus, and screens. By cutting the animation time in half, you’re telling your phone to complete those visual transitions twice as fast. The animations still happen, but they are much quicker.

This makes your phone feel significantly faster because you spend less time waiting for the fancy effects to finish. It’s a great way to breathe new life into an older phone that feels sluggish, or just to make a new phone feel even more lightning-fast.

A Quick Word of Caution

Developer Options is a powerful menu with settings meant for app developers. It’s best to only change the specific settings mentioned here. Changing other things you don’t understand could cause unexpected behavior. But don’t worry, adjusting these three animation scales is perfectly safe and completely reversible. If you ever want to go back, just set them to 1x again.