After its initial introduction in Korea back in July and a subsequent launch in the Chinese market in September, Samsung is now rolling out maintenance mode globally. This feature, also known as repair mode in Korea, allows you to block access to your personal data on your phone while it is being serviced.
The maintenance mode rollout will start with “select models” from the Galaxy S21 and S22 series running the just-released One UI 5. The rollout will continue throughout 2023, “with availability expanding to more Galaxy devices,” Samsung says.
If you’re lucky enough to have a device that gets this feature, you’ll find it in Settings > Battery & Device Care. When you enable maintenance mode and then restart your device, all your personal information will be inaccessible to the person working to repair your phone. They also won’t be able to retrieve your installed apps.
The data and accounts generated by them while in maintenance mode, as well as the apps downloaded from the Galaxy Store, are automatically deleted when you exit it. Speaking of exiting, tap the mode’s quick settings icon and then authenticate using your fingerprint. After that, the phone will restart in normal mode as if nothing ever happened.
Sounds pretty good to us; you just need to make sure your local garage doesn’t have a blanket policy of hard resetting devices before they come in (and/or before they go out to customers again).
