Galaxy S20 series gets Maintenance Mode with new update

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series is receiving a new software update with a handy new feature. The 2020 flagships get the company’s maintenance mode. This feature allows users to hide their data when they hand over the phone to a technician for repair or service.

Samsung first announced Maintenance Mode in July this year. The company soon began beta testing the feature for its flagship models. Some eligible devices have picked it up with the Android 13-based One UI 5.0 update. Others are getting it now, including the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra.

Maintenance mode creates a separate user account on your Galaxy smartphone, with no access to your apps, photos, messages and other data. It only allows access to core functions and applications, ensuring that technicians can work efficiently on the device. Repair technicians can also download new applications to the phone. But it is automatically uninstalled when exiting maintenance mode. The same applies to any new data generated during the recovery process, including new photos or documents that technicians may have stored in it.

You can enable Maintenance Mode from the “Battery and device care” menu in the Settings app. Once activated, restart your Galaxy smartphone and you are good to go. The phone will reboot with a new user account. The device will require you to verify your identity to exit Interview Mode.

This is the second software update for the Galaxy S20 series this month

The Galaxy S20 series was Samsung’s first smartphone to receive the December security patch. The rollout started a few weeks back. The latest release is the second software update of the month. Some users may still need to install the first release. If you are in Europe, make sure to install the update with firmware version G98**XXUFGVL5 to get Maintenance Mode on your Galaxy S20 unit (via). The official changelog does not mention the new feature. It simply says that the update improves security and “overall stability of features” on the Galaxy S20 trio.

As usual, Samsung will roll out the software release for the Galaxy S20 series in batches. The update is currently limited to a handful of European countries. A wider regional release should follow soon before the update goes global. US users have yet to pick up the first December update. It remains to be seen if Maintenance Mode will be bundled with that release, or if the company will see two different updates for the phones stateside. We will let you know as soon as we have more information.