1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. Remap reassign your android devices keys with buttonremapper

Remap And Reassign Your Android Device’s Keys With ButtonRemapper

One signature feature of almost all Android devices are the four main keys (back, home, menu and search) which are mostly hardware, but come as capacitive touch keys in some cases as well (like in the Samsung Galaxy S). These keys have almost acquired the status of identifiers of a device’s Android identity. However, the functions provided by these keys are restricted to what has been set as default, and there’s no option to modify or ‘remap’ these keys – that is, until now.

Member of the revered XDA Developers forum brings us another application for rooted devices, called ButtonRemapper. This app allows you to assign a new and different function to any hardware key on your device, and can also map software, capacitive keys.

As can be expected, the application requires complete root access, with a NAND unlocked device and complete, permanent write access to the system directory.

buttonremapper2buttonremapper1

ButtonRemapper is generally a generic tool that can edit the key layout map file that the Android operating system uses to map the keys Hence, using this, you can have the camera button on your device launch Angry Birds, for instance, or volume up can become permanent solution for zooming into pictures. The possibilities are limitless, but you must be wary that this can seriously damage your device (as with all root applications). Also recommended is to have a nandroid backup beforehand in case something goes wrong.

ButtonRemapper supports all Android devices except Samsung Galaxy S variants, and it does not work at all on the Galaxy Tab. For more details, feedback and download links, check out the official thread on XDA-Developers below.

ButtonRemapper on XDA-Developers forum

2 Comments

  1. sir i have three soft on screen navigation keys on android phone, functions of these keys are:

    first key = back

    second key= home

    third key= recent apps

    i want to change the function third key to menu, please tell me ButtonRemapper can do this or not? if yes then will it be permanent?

    is there any command to change this function.