We will agree that the fact that a cell phone battery does not last long is one of our most common dramas in this age of the smartphone. Well, taking that for granted, I recently found myself an application that I have never opened and yet it was the one that consumed the most battery. Surreal on paper, although with a certain meaning.
There’s a way to see which apps are draining the most on Android, which basically comes down to battery settings. I went there, out of pure curiosity, and found Gmail at the top of the list and with a lot of difference compared to the others. Luckily, remedying it is very simple and there is no mystery. Not even for apps like Gmail which in my case cannot be deleted.
Why do they consume these apps and how to fix it
The ‘Gmail’ app, at peak consumption without having used it
You may have been in a situation similar to what I found myself on one occasion, you are now or it will happen to you in the future. And it is that It is something completely normal and less so if it is not remedied. But before, let’s start by knowing the origin of this by continuing my case.
The mobile in which I detected this has only been with me for a few days. I didn’t do more than its initial setup, and I didn’t open Gmail in any way, since I’m using another email manager. In this case, as it is a Google application and the mobile I use is an Android with the company’s services integrated, my Google account was automatically associated with this messaging application. And so far everything is normal. What was my problem? Forget it was still there.
This is not an app that can be uninstalled. Or at least not in the usual way that we normally understand. However, in the background it continues to work. Because Just because an app isn’t open doesn’t mean it isn’t working. In this case, I don’t know the exact details of what Gmail would do, but among other things, I feel it would constantly sync emails so that when I open it, everything looks updated and ready.
And this happens with many other applications. There are applications that must be constantly operational to access our location, others that simply wait for us to quickly greet us when we want to use them (Facebook is one of them). The fact is that It’s extremely annoying if we never want to use them or at least not constantly. Because, as I have already told you, not only are they in use, but they are also among those that consume the most battery.
And here we find various solutions to consider:
- Uninstall the app: The most recommended is always in the event that it is an application that is already preinstalled or that we simply no longer use. Of course, as happened to me with Gmail, it’s not always possible to delete it.
- Disable it: This is the best option if we do not want to delete the application because we will need it in the future or if, as in my case, it cannot be uninstalled directly. To do this, you must go to the settings, enter the ‘Applications’ section, locate the application in question and click on the ‘Disable’ button.
- Uninstall it with ADB: If you can’t uninstall or disable it, there’s a slightly more advanced possibility that requires using ADB to remove it. If you find yourself in this situation, we recommend that you consult the tutorial in which we explain how to delete preinstalled applications on Android.
- Change permissions: As we have already said, some applications consume battery by constantly monitoring our location or other accesses. If we do not consider them necessary, we can return to the application settings panel and locate the active permissions and restrict them.
Going back to my specific case where I wanted to bring this experience, let’s say I couldn’t disable it, even though I didn’t need to remove it with ADB. By denying him permissions, I have already noticed that his consumption is considerably reduced. By the way, I disabled other apps that were also consuming and that’s how I managed redirect battery consumption to the actual use you were making of the device.
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