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I wonder if IMEI number of phone can really be changed. I've been searching in the Internet for a while, but did not find a satisfying answer, because all of them differ from each other. I am going to summarize what I've found by now:

  1. IMEI cannot be changed because it is stored in ROM memory,
  2. IMEI can be changed using certain apps that are able to do this,
  3. Such apps only change IMEI number that is displayed on the screen, but the real one stay untouched (supposed that it is true - how can I check if displayed IMEI is real or fake and how to check then the real one ?)
  4. You can change IMEI via Service/Engineer Mode that can be accessed by typing secret code
    (I tried this and I couldn't change there anything - there were only infos)

So as you can see, these answers are completely different. Could anyone refer to it?

Maciaz99
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  • In my opinion all 4 statements can be true but may be not for the same phone. How and where an IMEI is stored is not standardized which means your statements can have different answers for each phone. – Robert Aug 18 '22 at 12:17
  • Related: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/248057/how-do-hackers-change-mask-imei-numbers#comment333234_248057 – Irfan Latif Aug 18 '22 at 17:07
  • @Irfan Latif am I right that all the apps that are supposed to change IMEI are fakes and factory reset causes that original IMEI will be displayed again? – Maciaz99 Aug 18 '22 at 18:02
  • Sorry I never investigated what these apps do. So can't comment. But most of them certainly make false claims. There's a possibility that an app (like XPrivacy Lua) spoofs the IMEI within Android framework to protect privacy. Or some app may crack the binary partition where the IMEI is stored, so can change the IMEI. Or some app may decode the radio communication protocol and hence send some AT command to change the IMEI (as is common with MTK devices). But this is very hardware specific thing. And above all, I don't think one would do it free for you. It's a big illegal underground business. – Irfan Latif Aug 19 '22 at 11:45
  • My friend's device's imei got erased after flashing fastboot rom. Then I searched for a solution to how to add imei number to the device and found a way to do that but, I can be able to change the imei number of sim 1 but I cant change or add imei number to sim 2. I find that they installed engineer rom or something like that then connect the device to PC an then changed the imei number of sim 1 can be changed but if you do this, You should forgot about your sim 2 imei number. Thats a long time ago. I dont remember what device model or what tool I used for it. Thats a xioami device. Thats all – Shadow Monarch Sep 12 '22 at 13:10
  • This is ridiculous, I know IMEI's can be changed or at least spoofed, there's only an answer saying it can be changed, no it can't. I am not asking to change my serial number. If IMEI's can't be changed then can they at least be shielded/spoofed from apps like META, Snapchat and Twitter? – Ethan miller Nov 18 '22 at 17:54

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