How to change the boot animation on your smartphone

Jump to:

• What is a boot animation?
• How to install a boot animation manually
• How to install a boot animation using an app

What is a boot animation?

To begin with, what is boot animation? It's actually the little startup animation that plays when you turn on your Android smartphone, while the system is launching. It often features the manufacturer's logo.

There are several methods to install a new boot animation on Android. I'll present the simplest ones, which work for me almost all of the time. Both methods work on any Android device, provided you have rooted it.

• How to root Android: the complete guide

Install a boot animation manually

You need to install a file explorer that manages root rights. Root Explorer or Root Browser work very well, for example, but others are also suitable.

• The best Android file managers: explore your Android

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• Once the root permissions have been activated, go to the root of your device, locate the System directory and go to the Permissions menu, depending on the app, by a long press on the folder or by opening the menu key and selecting Properties. 
• Here, depending on the application you will see 9 boxes, sorted by "Read" or "-r","Write" or "-wr" and "Execute" or "-x". 
• Once you’ve opened Properties, you will need to make sure you give it all the read, write, and execute options under Permission.
• Once you’ve done this, head into the System file now and then go to Media or Multimedia (depending on your device). 
• You’ll find a file named bootanimation.zip. or similar (for Samsung, for example, you can find bootsamsung.qmg) Rename it to "bootanimation. zip1": you have just saved your boot animation in case you need it later.
• Now all you have to do is find an animation that you like and copy it to this folder, renaming it bootanimation and not touching its extension (". zip" or ". qmg"). You will be able to find various options online.
• Restart, and there you go! 

Change boot animations using an app

If the manual method isn’t your piece of cake, you can also use the following app as long as you have root access on your device.

Boot Animations for Superuser offers a ton of boot animations right off the bat, so as soon as you get tired on one, you can swap them out very easily. Unfortunately, many of the things found in this app require payment, so not all the animations are free.

For the record, I have had some problems with the application in the past, which doesn't work sometimes. In this case, uninstalling and reinstalling fixed everything.

Have you ever tried to change your boot animation? Which animation did you choose? Let us know in the comments.