Odin is a utility software program developed and used by

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

internally which is used to communicate with Samsung devices in Odin mode (also called download mode) through the Thor (protocol). It can be used to

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

a custom recovery firmware image (as opposed to the stock recovery firmware image) to a Samsung Android device. Odin is also used for unbricking certain Android devices. Odin is the Samsung proprietary alternative to

Fastboot Fastboot is a communication protocol used primarily with Android devices. It is implemented in a command-line interface tool of the same name and as a mode of the bootloader of Android devices. The tool is included with the Android SDK package ...

. There is no account of Samsung ever having officially openly released Odin, though it is mentioned in the developer documents for

Samsung Knox Samsung Knox (stylized as SΛMSUNG Knox) is a proprietary security and management framework pre-installed on most Samsung mobile devices. Its primary purpose is to provide organizations with a toolset for managing work devices, such as employee ...

SDK and some documents even instruct users to use Odin. Some other docs on Knox SDK reference "engineering firmware", which presumably can be a part of the Knox SDK along with Odin. Publicly available binaries are believed to be the result of leaks. The tool is not intended for end-users, but for Samsung's own personnel and approved repair centers.

Usage

Although none of the publicly available downloads are authorized by

itself, XDA-Developers consider the files offered on their Forum
Patched Odin v3 3.14.1 for windows

Odin v4 1.2.1 for linux
the safest option. There is now
3.14.4
but it is not stable release For the usage of Odin, the phone needs to be in Download mode. For this, some key combination need to be pressed, such as Power + Volume Down + Home, or Power + Volume Down + Bixby for later models.

Heimdall

Heimdall
is a free/libre/open-source,

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

replacement for Odin which is based on libusb. Heimdall can be used on Mac or Linux. The name

Heimdall In Norse mythology, Heimdall (from Old Norse Heimdallr; modern Icelandic language, Icelandic Heimdallur) is a Æsir, god. He is the son of Odin and nine mothers. Heimdall keeps watch for invaders and the onset of Ragnarök from his dwelling Himi ...

, like

Odin Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Em ...

, is an allusion to

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

; both Odin and Heimdall are among the deities of the Norse pantheon.

References

Android (operating system) software Proprietary software Samsung software Windows software {{software-stub