How to disable the developer option in Chrome for Android?

The flag to show Developer options is stored on Chrome's shared preferences under the developer key, which can only be accessed with root access.

As shown on the source code:

1. AboutChromeSettings: tapping the Application Version 7 times calls DeveloperSettings.setDeveloperSettingsEnabled()


2. DeveloperSettings: writes the boolean value true to ChromePreferenceKeys.SETTINGS_DEVELOPER_ENABLED


3. ChromePreferenceKeys: SETTINGS_DEVELOPER_ENABLED refers to the developer key in the shared preferences

To reset the flag:

• With root access

  
  

  Users can overwrite the value on the shared preferences directly

  
  
  
  
  1. Browse to /data/data/com.android.chrome/shared_prefs/
  
  
  2. Open com.android.chrome_preferences.xml
  
  
  3. Search the line <boolean name="developer" value="true" />
  
  
  4. Change the value to "false"
  
  
  5. Save the change
  
  
  
  



• Without root access

  
  

  Users can only use Android Settings' "Clear data" to reset the flag. Note that this will also reset all Chrome's settings.