Samsung killing bootloader unlocking was a huge loss for the custom ROM community
This sucks. Was excited to root my device after the Android 16 release, and now Samsung has gone and removed bootloader unlocking capabilities entirely.
The OEM unlocking toggle isn't just missing from developer settings. The necessary code to unlock the bootloader has been completely stripped from the firmware. For people like me who were looking for a phone that can be rooted, this is a huge loss. A whole wave of S22, S23, S24, and S25 owners are stuck.
OEM unlocking is indeed removed permanently from the new software update of newer Samsung Galaxy devices. If your baseband only has Android 16 and you can't downgrade to 15 or 14, your only option is something like Chimera tool, but it's not free.
I hope somebody finds an exploit. It feels like Samsung closed the door on a community that kept their older devices alive way past their support window. They went with the Huawei route sadly.
What's great about Samsung back in the day is that these phones are everywhere. If you're in the US, one of the biggest choices for Android phones has always been Samsung and Motorola. Back in the early days like the mid 2010s, after getting an S5 or S6 or S7, S8 or S10 there would always be a LineageOS custom ROM around the corner, and it was super easy to install.
And then here we are in 2026. The latest phone that's easy to unlock with an official custom ROM is the Samsung A73, but this phone was made in 2022. I know we have an S23 for LineageOS, but there's no official tool to unlock the bootloader once it has upgraded to One UI 8.
Looks like all we have left is Xiaomi, but even HyperOS 2, or even worse HyperOS 3, is extremely hard to unlock the bootloader on.