Samsung Galaxy update removes Android recovery menu tools, including sideloading

Ben Schoon | Feb 27 2026 - 2:50 pm PT

Samsung, with some of its latest updates, is set to remove some core tools from Android’s recovery menu, and it’s unclear why.

Every Android smartphone ships with a recovery menu that includes the abilty to reset the device, wipe the cache, apply updates, and more. That’s a very simplified explanation, but it’s a standard feature, and one that you might be most familiar with when manually sideloading Android updates, such as the beta updates Google releases for Pixels.

In One UI 8.5, though, Samsung is making a change to this.

As first noted by GalaxyClub and spotted by others too, Samsung is removing several options from the Android recovery menu with the latest updates for Galaxy phones. Specifically, the update is removing:

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Apply update from ADB
Apply update from SD card
Wipe cache partition
View recovery logs
Run graphics test
Run locale test

The only options remaining are “Reboot system now,” “Wipe data/factory reset,” and “Power off.”

9to5Google can confirm that, at least on the current software build (January 2026 security patch), recovery tools are still fully in place on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but that could change seeing as GalaxyClub reports seeing this change attached to February 2026 security updates.

This change might be permanent, too, as GalaxyClub also notes that this update came with a notice saying that “you will not be able to downgrade to the old software due to changes in security policy.”

Top comment by OrangeChilli

Liked by 16 people

So this isn't a Google decision. It's Samsung attempting to prevent people from both developing and installing custom Android ROM's on their manufactured devices, and that's just as bad. If you can't do what you want with what you buy, you didn't buy it, and don't own it, period. The problem here is why Samsung made this decision. Most likely it's because of how prominent the custom ROM community has become with using custom ROM's to do actual illegal activities, even though the creation and usage of those ROM's aren't illegal. They are trying to solve a problem that they technically created, as the best tools for flashing custom ROM's to most devices that are designed for running proprietary Android software, is made by Samsung, and is so widely available on the internet it easily explains why Samsung is doing this.

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So why is this happening?

Put simply, we do not know. There has been speculation, though, that Samsung might be tightening security. Just today, a leaker showed that Samsung is taking legal action to put a stop to One UI build leaks. It’d certainly be quite a big move for Samsung to just cut off sideloading via the recovery for eveyone in response, but it’s not necessarily out of the question either.

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