getting rid of bloody google play services

quinnd6

Google play services is instantly taking up all the internal memory on my phone. How do I stop it without being able to update apps manually on my phone or screwing something up. Its driving me up the wall. Ive an xperia play. Bloody google nagging a-holes.

28064212

Memory (RAM) or storage? Google Play Services is responsible for a whole bunch of stuff, removing it would cripple your phone. Try clearing the cache of the app

Riesen_Meal

It's a vital component to the operation of how your phone runs and apps getting updates etc

Do you mean it's hogging your battery?

If it is maybe see can you install the previous one and stop it updating via settings on the play store...

quinnd6

I only havw 512mb of internal storage on my phone. It uses up all the remaining storage and I keep getting low on space warnings and delete the data from google play every minute but it comes back immediately.
I cant move it to my sd card either because it wont let me.

thomasj

What phone have you got and what version of android have you got.

quinnd6

thomasj wrote: »

What phone have you got and what version of android have you got.

Xperia play. Android 2.3.3.
I think its gingerbread.

GBX

Quinnd6 - it is using ram not storage. Its a necessary part of how your phone works. You would need to delete other stuff or add a micro sd if your phone has a slot.

Mantis Toboggan

quinnd6 wrote: »

Xperia play. Android 2.3.3.
I think its gingerbread.

That and the 512 mb of memory is your problem.

You really need to buy a decent phone.

GBX

Tyson Fury wrote: »

That and the 512 mb of memory is your problem.

You really need to buy a decent phone.

Yep - released in 2011. Basic phone now. You could pick up a better Chinese branded phone for about €100

Mycroft H

When I used an xperia play, quite a while ago now, I flashed it with CynaogenMod. I could be something you could look into. If I remember correctly the stock Sony Ericsson OS was a bit heavy and CynogenMod ran quite a bit better

Mr E

quinnd6 wrote: »

Xperia play. Android 2.3.3.
I think its gingerbread.

You're in the 0.9% of people on Gingerbread. Sorry to say it, but time for an upgrade. It's only a matter of time before Google drop support for it.

https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Suckit

You can disable it also.
Settings > Applications > All > Google Play Services > Disable
But i would install a custom rom. https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-play
The community and rom development for the play is still very much active.

28064212

Move every other app that you possibly can to the SD card. Also clear the cache of Play Services and the Play Store (might be Android Market in that version)

GBX wrote: »

Quinnd6 - it is using ram not storage.

It's not. Or at least the RAM use is not the issue, otherwise he wouldn't be getting "Low on space" warnings. The problem is the lack of internal stoarge, not the lack of RAM.

OP, an alternative option (other than buying a new phone) is to look into installing a custom ROM. You'll find more info on xda-developers.com. Custom ROMs tend to be more lightweight than stock, and can get to a more recent Android version. It can get pretty technical though

You are talking about a 6 year old phone though, so regardless you're going to have limited options

dastardly00

Sorry for jumping in on the OPs thread with a different question...
but is anyone elses battery crippled because of Google services? It's always the highest usage of battery when I look at the stats (no specific app, just Settings -> Battery).

I've a OnePlus X running Android 6.0.1 and OxygenOS 3.1.4.

I know this has affected loads of different versions of Android phones over the last few years, I'm just wondering if there is any fix to the current issue.

CelticRambler

I've been plagued with this insufficient space message for a few months, despite having every app stored on my SD card whenever possible and a supposed 1GB of internal storage available on my Kitkat 'phone. Even updates of as little as 30-50MB are being shelved due to "not enough space".

@OP: I find that uninstalling/restoring factory version of every Google app, then rebooting the phone sorts out most of these incidents
(except Gboard, because it's a real pain to reconfigure it afterwards with my quirky preferences) And because that's a hassle, I usually just live with the "out of date" version of the apps for about a month at a time.

quinnd6

I already have everything moved to sd card that I can aswell.
I can't use Whatsapp if it's out of date.

Colser

Same here..I'm hopeless about phones..can cache be deleted ..I'm worried that I'll delete something important?

Suckit

Look at the xda link. There is still a very active community building custom roms and updating them for the Xperia Play.
I have one. I replaced the ribbon cable last year and i mainly only use it on weekends away.  I am pretty sure mine is on ICS (this rom), i have not changed the rom since just after hallowe'en, it works fine, but i have seen a lot of notifications since then, including one last week.

GBX

Colser wrote: »

Same here..I'm hopeless about phones..can cache be deleted ..I'm worried that I'll delete something important?

Cache can be cleared. Go to settings - storage and click on cache - should give you the option to delete contents

quinnd6

The Xperia play xda forum isn't very active at the moment.
The last post before mine was a week ago.
I doubt I'll get a reply today.

GBX

quinnd6 wrote: »

The Xperia play xda forum isn't very active at the moment.
The last post before mine was a week ago.
I doubt I'll get a reply today.

I do hope you get sorted but its an old device which id imagine there are very few people using theirs. I would imagine developers have since upgraded and devoting their time to this phone anymore.

quinnd6

I deleted the updates from google play store app and restarted my phone so google play is now Android Marketplace.
I deleted the data from google services.
I then restarted my phone.
I wouldn't recommend it to others as its awkward getting your google play store back but it seems to be a temporary workaround for me.

listermint

Seriously lads,

Just buy a new phone, Christ you can get a second hand phone with 16Gb ram for about 40 Euro.

Moto G and Moto E make a fantastic range of really solid good phones that can be picked up new or second hand for next to nothing. Adverts.ie

You are just living in painful misery by continuing to try and use the latest services with a device that old with that little memory.

Akin to trying to play the latest cames on a Commodore 64.

(pointless)

south

I think i used this when i used the play years ago..
https://mohamed0essam.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/link-apps-to-sd-card-on-android/comment-page-1/

Worked well when i was running out of space.

beauf

listermint wrote: »

...Just buy a new phone, Christ you can get a second hand phone with 16Gb ram for about 40 Euro....

sugarman wrote: »

I have it flashed with Cyanogen mod and use an 8GB card with apps saving directly to the card and also using 1.5gb of the SD as additional RAM.

Just to be pedantic. And repeat what was said earlier. That's internal storage not RAM. Most phones only have 512mb/1 ~ 4 GB of RAM.

Android has a problem in that some apps can't be move to external storage so your internal storage space is critical. You really need a phone with 16GB of internal storage.

On Android 6 and 7 you can use the SD as internal memory but I've killed a few SD cards doing that, so I've stopped.

Switch to a 2GB RAM/16 or 32BG Internal RAM phone and that will solve your problems for a year or two.

quinnd6

beauf wrote: »

Just to be pedantic. And repeat what was said earlier. That's internal storage not RAM. Most phones only have 512mb/1 ~ 4 GB of RAM.

Android has a problem in that some apps can't be move to external storage so your internal storage space is critical. You really need a phone with 16GB of internal storage.

On Android 6 and 7 you can use the SD as internal memory but I've killed a few SD cards doing that, so I've stopped.

Switch to a 2GB RAM/16 or 32BG Internal RAM phone and that will solve your problems for a year or two.

I put in the effort of fixing the cracked screen on my phone myself. I don't feel like buying a new phone. I dont want facebook and youtube apps as thats what a browser is for. People recommending me to buy a new phone are not being helpful. The only thing about my phone thats a pain is google services. Google themselves are the problem here. Only for that crap annoying me Id be perfectly happy with my phone. If I could fix that why would I bother buying a new phone. Whatsapp is the only app I use and thats it. I believe there is a way to offload the google services data load to an sd card and Im going to try to do that tomorrow. Someone else recommended, it to me aswell here so Im going to give that a go. Im not going to let googles bs bully me into buying a phone when I have a phone that works perfectly fine.

ED E

Have a look at the list of vulnerabilities that you wont be able to work around:
http://androidvulnerabilities.org/by/version/2.3.3

And then buy a new phone.

beauf

sugarman wrote: »

I dont know why youre quoting me there. Theres been plenty of custom roms/images available well before android 6 and 7 where you can move all your apps to external storage as well as using using a partition of the SD as additional RAM.

As I said, I have this phone since new and still use it as a spare with a custom rom of Cyanogen based on lollipop, with an 8gb card with all the apps on it as well a 1.5gb partition acting as additional RAM.

Not everyone needs all the bells and whistles of a new phone.

You could even do it with that App2SD thingy depending on the ROM you had. But thats different to using the SD card as internal Memory which came in 6 and 7.

Its not about the bells and whistles. If you want the patches and updates you need the latest version of android services. If you don't want any of that thats fine.

quinnd6

sugarman wrote: »

Is your phone rooted?

Nope I need to root it.
It's got android 2.3.4 is that ok for rooting?
Oh I think I have to unlock the bootloader aswell and it says on the phone that I can't do that.
This whole thing is getting more and more complicated.

So I have to unlock the bootloader, root the phone, partition my micro sd card and purchase link2sd paid version and hope that I don't screw up my phone in the process.

I think I have to flash a 2.33 firmware onto my phone.
If I get the wrong firmware will my sim card work at all?

Ursus Horribilis

I don't know what they're like now but the Sony phones seemed to be horrifically short on storage space in the past. I had a Sony Ericsson phone 5 or 6 years ago and it was a torment. I ended up rooting it and taking off preinstalled apps that were hogging precious space. Eventually I just sold the phone because I got pissed off at the constant battle for space. It was a lesson learned. I've since met other people also had Sony phones with feck all storage space. There's only so much you can do with them. Unless you're flat broke and can't afford a new phone, what you're trying to do is madness. The comparison made with a Commodore 64 is an apt one. Your phone is a dinosaur. I don't know what you paid to get that screen repaired but it would have gone a long way towards a nice budget handset.

quinnd6

The bootloader is locked and it's unlockable so I can't root my phone and so I can't use link2sd app properly to free up the internal storage.
I opened up the service menu and discovered my bootloader is locked and if I wanted to unlock it I would need to use the testpoint method which involves grounding and messing around with a pin and seems too easy to screw up.
If you screw it up you end up with a bricked phone.
I think I'll have to give up on Xperia Play and buy a new phone.
I got 5 good years out of it anyway.
As a smartphone it is pretty much unusable now unfortunately.
If I take google services off it I'll probably be able to use it as an ordinary non smart phone maybe have some browser use from it but as regards apps go I think it's pretty much a no go.
I think even if I deleted all the apps on my phone Google would still screw it up for me with google services.
The phone shouldn't have been designed like this.

Do modern phones allow you to offload the google crap to a micro sd card?
I don't want to buy another phone that's living on borrowed time because of google's donkey crap and shoddy business.

quinnd6

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

I don't know what they're like now but the Sony phones seemed to be horrifically short on storage space in the past. I had a Sony Ericsson phone 5 or 6 years ago and it was a torment. I ended up rooting it and taking off preinstalled apps that were hogging precious space. Eventually I just sold the phone because I got pissed off at the constant battle for space. It was a lesson learned. I've since met other people also had Sony phones with feck all storage space. There's only so much you can do with them. Unless you're flat broke and can't afford a new phone, what you're trying to do is madness. The comparison made with a Commodore 64 is an apt one. Your phone is a dinosaur. I don't know what you paid to get that screen repaired but it would have gone a long way towards a nice budget handset.

Hey it's ok I did it myself it only cost me about a tenner so I don't feel too bad about it.
It'll be still good for playing retro games anyway.

_Godot_

quinnd6 wrote:

The bootloader is locked and it's unlockable so I can't root my phone and so I can't use link2sd app properly to free up the internal storage.
I opened up the service menu and discovered my bootloader is locked and if I wanted to unlock it I would need to use the testpoint method which involves grounding and messing around with a pin and seems too easy to screw up.
If you screw it up you end up with a bricked phone.
I think I'll have to give up on Xperia Play and buy a new phone.
I got 5 good years out of it anyway.
As a smartphone it is pretty much unusable now unfortunately.
If I take google services off it I'll probably be able to use it as an ordinary non smart phone maybe have some browser use from it but as regards apps go I think it's pretty much a no go.
I think even if I deleted all the apps on my phone Google would still screw it up for me with google services.
The phone shouldn't have been designed like this.

Do modern phones allow you to offload the google crap to a micro sd card?
I don't want to buy another phone that's living on borrowed time because of google's donkey crap and shoddy business.

To the last paragraph, yes, if it has android 6 or later (usually, one or two phone makers might not let it).

There's some really nice cheaper phones, I'm using the Moto G4 Play at the moment, and it's a nice phone. The G4 and G4 Plus are even better specc'd. I think there's a G5 too. I only have 16gb storage so I stuck a 128gb card into it and moved apps to that. The ram is only 1gb but I don't notice any lag.

CelticRambler

quinnd6 wrote: »

Do modern phones allow you to offload the google crap to a micro sd card?
I don't want to buy another phone that's living on borrowed time because of google's donkey crap and shoddy business.

No. From what I've read recently, there's even less that you can move over to the SD card now than on my Kitkat version.

I'm of the same opinion as yourself: that there's too much junk pre-loaded that's damn near impossible to get rid of, and even if you rarely use it, the updates make it more and more bloated as time goes on (pretty much the same nonsense as you see with Windows 10 vs. WinXP) I don't agree that these older devices are dinosaurs - I still have a working ZX Spectrum ... and a record player :pac: - only that it's someone's business plan to render them unusable even if they're not obsolete.

I've actually given up using the phone for most things now (google/browser/youtube/whatsapp/maps/etc), preferring instead to use it as a wifi hub and running all those things through the laptop.

batistuta9

You dont always need to unlock the bootloader to flash roms. See if you can find a custom rom based on the stock one, then root it.

Ursus Horribilis

quinnd6 wrote: »

Hey it's ok I did it myself it only cost me about a tenner so I don't feel too bad about it.
It'll be still good for playing retro games anyway.

Thank heavens for small mercies The way you were going on about having just replaced a cracked screen, it sounded like you'd paid a lot more. I'll sleep easy after this.

beauf

The problem with many Android phones is they fill themselves will bloat. And even the bloat updates. And you can't un install it.

My old Samsung, I reset it and then it would fill it self up with up dates. You could block some but it was just a pain.

Some phones like the moto g and e almost no bloat and this gives the phone more space for updates and thus longevity..

There's a lot less bloat on phones these days. In general. It's mostly old phones that suffered with it.

quinnd6

If I uninstall google play services will I still be able to use google maps?

Ursus Horribilis

What non google apps are installed on your phone? Maybe you could take off some of those instead of trying to remove system apps? Don't forget google are the people behind android so it's natural that they'll be building the likes of youtube, gmail, maps etc. into the system. For example, you could remove/disable Facebook and Twitter and use the browser instead.

quinnd6

I can't disable anything.
My OS doesn't allow it.
I think I've gotten rid of everything that my OS allows.
I want to keep Google Maps as it comes in handy.
I got rid of whatsapp.
I deleted some data from video editor about 7mb so that seems to have gotten rid of low storage warning for now.
It'll probably come back though at some point.

quinnd6

quinnd6 wrote: »

I can't disable anything.
My OS doesn't allow it.
I think I've gotten rid of everything that my OS allows.
I want to keep Google Maps as it comes in handy.
I got rid of whatsapp.
I deleted some data from video editor about 7mb so that seems to have gotten rid of low storage warning for now.
It'll probably come back though at some point.

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to keep yourself locked back in a bubble from 6 or 7 years ago, android has moved on a lot since then.

You really are best just investing a small amount of money on something that runs Lollipop or above. The hoops you'll have to jump through to keep using such an old, low-specced device is only going to get worse and worse, imo.

quinnd6

Yes I am thinking about buying a new phone now.
Trying to decide on the right one is tricky though.
I don't want to spend too much.
The Xperia play was 229 euros when I bought it.
I don't want to spend that much this time though.

CelticRambler

If all you really want is google maps, you could buy a 4G dual sim any-network Wiko off the shelf in any French supermarket for 70 or 80€!

Ursus Horribilis

Maybe take a look at this then? http://www.trustedreviews.com/best-cheap-mobile-phones_round-up

I've a friend who bought one of those Motorola G phones and it is a beautiful handset. I see the G5 is coming out now so you should be able to pick up the G4 more cheaply. If I was buying a phone at the lower end of the market, that's what I'd buy.

A relative bought one of those Vodafone Smart phones (can't remember which one but it was well under €200) and again it's an impressive handset. The camera is weak but when you're at the lower end of the market, you're going to lose out on something.

quinnd6

I was wondering about the Huawei y6 2 compact.
Can you move apps to sd card on that phone?

Ursus Horribilis

You can move apps to SD on any phone. You ran into trouble because you have an old phone which was built to a spec that was just about OK 5 years ago. Even at that, it was questionable. I don't know what your budget is but try to get as much internal storage space as you can. What I noticed with my old Sony phone was that having so many apps on the sd card slowed it up.

quinnd6

Nope some phones seem to only allow you to move data to sd and you have to leave the app on the phone unless you uninstall it.
From what I've read I believe the Huawei Y6 2 compact has that problem.
One of the reviews for it says you can't move apps to micro sd card.
Sure it has 16gb of internal storage but a good bit of that gets filled up by the OS.
I need to get a phone with decent amount of storage or that allows adaptable storage via micro sd.
I do like to game sometimes but I don't want to spend a fortune on a phone either.
I've seen too many reviews saying that tey got a faulty Motorola G4.
Any recommendations?

GBX

I think phones with Marshmallow on allow for moving apps. So if looking at devices if it has 6.0 and an sd slot, this would solve a low storage issue.

Ursus Horribilis

What's your budget?

quinnd6

Less than 200.
I was thinking of cheaper than that but if I'd like to game on it I think I'd need to at least spend around that.

beauf

GBX wrote: »

I think phones with Marshmallow on allow for moving apps. So if looking at devices if it has 6.0 and an sd slot, this would solve a low storage issue.

I would not reply on that being true. I would check the support issues on the phone before you buy it.