What do you want to know
- Samsung has announced a new feature that will protect your data while your phone is being repaired.
- The repair mode feature will first be available on the Samsung Galaxy S21 series in South Korea.
- In the future, Samsung intends to extend the feature to other Galaxy models.
The thought of leaving your broken phone in the hands of a technician can be a nightmare, but Samsung has come up with a solution to give you peace of mind while your device is being repaired.
Samsung has introduced a new Repair Mode feature (opens in a new tab) for Galaxy devices (via SamMobile (opens in a new tab)). The feature is first coming to the Galaxy S21 series in South Korea before making its way to most top Samsung phones.
The new feature protects against any potential privacy breaches that may occur when you send your phone in for repair. There have been similar incidents in the past, including in 2020 when game designer Jane McGonigal turned in her Pixel 5a for repair. Someone then gained access to their phone and personal data stored in Gmail, Google Drive, photos, backup email account and Dropbox.
With the repair mode service, Samsung hopes to prevent this from happening to Galaxy phone owners. It basically locks your device before sending it in for repair.
In repair mode, technicians will have fairly limited access to applications. This means that they can only access basic apps that facilitate the phone repair process, preventing anyone from accessing your personal photos and files as well as private messages.
You can enable the feature by going to the “Battery and Device Care” section in the Settings app. Your device will restart in repair mode, locking your photos, accounts, and messages. Once the repair is complete, you can exit repair mode and return to your full app catalog.
It’s unclear if Repair Mode will roll out to other regions. But then again, you’ll soon be able to do your own repairs when Samsung, in conjunction with iFixit, starts shipping genuine replacement parts to users this summer.
The new service solves a long-standing problem for Galaxy phone users, although it’s a little surprising that it took Samsung so long to launch this kind of feature. Either way, it’s a welcome change.