Love them or hate them, Samsung is by far the most dominant manufacturer of Android smartphones in the world. While most of us are only familiar with their flagship lineup, the list of Galaxy devices they have built is simply staggering. Samsung offers multiple models in every conceivable price and specification category and in nearly every market to boot. Given the plethora of network carriers and the specific demands made before they offer to carry Samsung’s devices, it’s no surprise to see such diversity of features even among regional variants of the exact same device model.
Samsung is able to quickly customize the software experience of their devices in different regions by modifying what features are enabled in Samsung’s Consumer Software Customization file (CSC), which can be found in /system/csc. Even if you and your friend are running the same version of Android and the same version of the Samsung Experience software (formerly known as TouchWiz), it’s possible that you one of you won’t have access to the same features as the other if you both own different carrier variants of the same phone.
One such feature that is not present in every Samsung Galaxy variant is the mobile data quick setting tile. This tile allows you to quickly enable or disable mobile data, which can be useful if you are trying to conserve battery life or don’t have an unlimited data plan.
In my previous tutorial showing Samsung Galaxy users how to customize the size of the quick settings tile layout without needing root access, one user pointed out this lack of a feature on their device. Lo and behold, my own AT&T Samsung Galaxy S7 was also missing this mobile data toggle, so I wanted to see if I could solve this user’s request. Thankfully, I was able to re-enable this Mobile Data quick setting tile without needing root access – here’s how!
Thanks Milo Joseph for the screenshots!
How to Enable Mobile Data Quick Setting Tile on Samsung Galaxy Devices
The first solution to this problem was brought to my attention by another user in the comments section of my quick settings layout article, but that method required root access. It involved modifying the /system/csc/others.xml file to include the Mobile Data toggle under <CscFeature_SystemUI_ConfigDefQuickSettingItem>. The modification is very simple as all you have to do is add the string “MobileData” somewhere in the comma-separated list of quick setting tiles in that particular feature line in the XML file.
Although this method requires root access (which puts it out of the reach of the vast majority of users), it did provide some insight on how to tackle this problem. First, it appears that this CSC modification simply tells the system to show this quick setting tile to be displayed after booting up, but it does not actually seem to add the feature. This modification works without modifying any other system file, meaning this quick setting tile is present on the stock software without needing to touch anything else. Could it be that all Samsung did was hide the tile from the quick setting tile menu? You bet!
To bring it back, we just need to do a very simple ADB command. If you’ve already got ADB set up on your machine, then you can skip the next section. If not, here’s a quick tutorial on setting up ADB.
Setting up ADB
First, download the ADB binary straight from Google for your particular OS and extract it to a separate directory on your computer. Next, install the proper driver for your particular phone. Then, enable “USB Debugging” in Settings –> Developer Options. If you don’t see Developer Options, then you will need to enable it by going to Settings –> About Phone then tapping on Build number 7 times. Finally, ensure that ADB is working by starting a command prompt in the same directory as the ADB binary (right-click –> “open command prompt here”) and run the following command:
adb devices
If you see your device’s serial number (and it doesn’t say unauthorized), you’re golden. If you see a pop-up on your phone asking you to grant your computer ADB access, then say yes. If you don’t see either happen, then try rebooting your computer/phone and re-plugging it into your computer. Otherwise, try re-installing the driver.
Sending the ADB Command to Enable Mobile Data Toggle
Once you’ve confirmed ADB is working, it’s time to run the command. First, enter the following command to enter ADB shell:
adb shell
Your terminal/command prompt should now show that you are within the shell environment of your device. Once you’re in, enter this next command:
settings get secure sysui_qs_tiles
This will output a comma separated list of names that represent your current Quick Settings tiles. Copy this list down (save it in your clipboard, to a text file, whatever.) If you do not save this list, all of your existing Quick Settings tiles will disappear in the next command. Next, enter the following command:
settings put secure sysui_qs_tiles "YOUROLDLIST,MobileData"
Where YOUROLDLIST represents the comma separated list of Quick Setting tiles that you saved just before and MobileData is the name of the Mobile Data Toggle, appended to the end of the original tiles list. Note the comma between the old list and MobileData, and also note the use of quotation marks. Basically, all we’re doing is appending the name of the Mobile Data toggle to the end of our original tile list.
Once you enter this command, you should immediately see the Mobile Data toggle show up at the end of your Quick Settings tiles. You can re-arrange it as you please so it will appear on the first page. This toggle will persist through reboots, but won’t survive a factory reset.
Hopefully you found this tutorial useful. I know that this tutorial is more niche than some of the others, but this seems to be a popular feature that is missing on a wide variety of Samsung Galaxy devices, so I thought it was worth sharing.
If you come across a problem that you want us at XDA to look into, feel free to send us a tip or contact one of us directly through e-mail or the forums and we’ll look into it! We have more tutorials pending in the future, so be sure to follow the XDA Portal to learn how to solve some common, and some not so common, problems with your Android device!
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