If your looking to move carriers and have a GSM phone you expect to be able to take out the old SIM card and put a new one in and keep going but carriers lock the devices so its not so easy to leave them. Here we decided to post the unlock instructions for the Samsung Galaxy S4 so that you can use the popular device with any GSM carrier. You paid for the phone so why shouldn’t you be able to take it with you to a new carrier?
The process of unlocking your Galaxy S4 to use on a different carrier is not as difficult as you would think and does NOT require rooting the phone to complete. You don’t even need to hold combinations of buttons and run through scary screens. I will note thought that you might want to backup anything on your phone you aren’t willing to lose. The process shouldn’t wipe your device although when making changes like this it can happen and better to be prepared than sad about losing something.
While this method seems to work flawlessly on the T-Mobile version of the GS4 we have had a few people let us know that it was successful on their AT&T Galaxy S4 as well so let us know if you do this to an AT&T version and the outcome.
UPDATE: It seems that this currently does not work on the AT&T Galaxy S4 as of the most current update to the device. This being said I will look for AT&T method and add to this article when available.
How to Carrier Unlock the T-Mobile Galaxy S4 (SGH-M919)
- Go to phone dialer, and enter *#27663368378# to bring up the debug service menu.
- In “Service Mode” select option [1] UMTS
- In “UMTS MAIN MENU” select option [1] DEBUG SCREEN
- In “DEBUG SCREEN” select option [6] PHONE CONTROL
- In “PHONE CONTROL” select option [6] NETWORK LOCK
- In “NETWORK LOCK” select option [3] PERSO SHA256 OFF
- You should now see SHA256_ENABLED_FLAG[1] as an option select it
- You should now see MENU NOT EXIST PRESS BACK KEY Current Command is 116631
- Next press the menu button and select “Back”
- You should now see SHA256_ENABLED_FLAG[0] SHA256_OFF => Not Change
- Press the menu button again and select “Back”
- You should now be back at the “NETWORK LOCK” screen
- Press the menu button and select “Back”
- Now you should be back at the “PHONE CONTROL” screen
- Press the menu button and select “Back” again
- Now you should be back at the “DEBUG SCREEN” screen
- One more time press the menu button and select “Back”
- This should take you back to the “UMTS MAIN MENU” screen
- Select option [6] COMMON
- In “COMMON” screen select option [6] NV REBUILD
- Now you are in the “NV REBUILD” screen, you should see “Golden-Backup exist” “You can Restore Cal/NV”
- In “NV REBUILD” screen select option [4] Restore Back-up
- The button lights for menu and back should come on and your GS4 will auto reboot after a few seconds.
VIDEO AVAILABLE SHORTLY
In order to test success you will need to insert a new carriers SIM card and upon booting the device up you shouldn’t see a popup asking for an unlock code as it does when locked. If you have any issues with the process please feel free to let us know as well as anything we may have missed. You best bet is to watch the process in our video above and then run through the instructions that way you have an idea of what to expect.