Some GPIO’s cannot be used freely, as they are already assigned to module peripherals or have special functions during booting:

GPIO0 pin is used as a bootstrapping pin, and should be low to enter UART download mode. Make sure it is not pulled low by a peripheral device during boot or the firmware will not start!

GPIO2 pin is used as a bootstrapping pin, and should be low to enter UART download mode. Make sure it is not pulled high by a peripheral device during boot or you will not be able to flash a firmware to the module!

GPIO06 through GPIO11 are reserved for the FLASH. You cannot use them at all!

GPIO12 is used as a bootstrapping pin to select output voltage of an internal regulator which powers the flash chip (VDD_SDIO). This pin has an internal pulldown so if left unconnected it will read low at reset (selecting default 3.3V operation). Make sure it is not pulled high by a peripheral device during boot or the module might not be able to start!

GPIO15 can be used to stop debug output on Serial during boot. If pulled low there will be no output on the Serial port during the boot process. This can be helpful in battery powered applications where you do not want to use the Serial port at all to reduce power consumption.

GPIO34-39 can only be set as input mode and do not have software pullup or pulldown functions

GPIO37 and 38 are not available on most modules

ESP32-PICO-D4:

GPIO16 and 17 are used for internal Flash (Readers input)

ESP32 WROVER:

GPIO16 and 17 are used for the PSRAM