Battery drain on Google Play Services is somewhat confusing as it is often caused by external applications and features that use features such as location, metrics, Wi-Fi, etc. that are supported by the Services. The use of these features will be reflected in the battery consumption of the Services. We’ve put together a few solutions that should help you fix battery drain and get Play Services back to working properly.

How to detect battery usage by Google Play services on Android

You don’t need to install another app to detect if Google Play Services is draining your Android device’s battery.

1. Go to Settings and tap “Apps & Notifications”.
2. Tap on “See all xx apps”, scroll down to “Google Play Services” and tap it.
3. Tap “Advanced” and then see what it says in the “Battery” section.

What percentage of the battery has been used since the last full charge? If you’re using more than a small percentage of your battery (that is, if it’s a two-digit number) it’s too much and you need to take action to fix the problem.

Find the TRUE source of the battery discharge

But here’s a little more than meets the eye, as Google Play Services alone doesn’t drain your battery. As we mentioned earlier, it’s actually the other apps communicating with Google Play services (location access, Wi-Fi, data, and background activity) that are causing a drain.

So when you see Google Play Services is draining your battery, your first step should be to find out which apps are actually draining your battery.

There used to be quite a few applications for this, but some have fallen off the edge of the world. BetterBatteryStats was once one of the best but is no longer on the Play Store while the once popularGreenify hasn’t been updated for several years.

It’s goneAccuBattery Takeall the glory You have to let it run for a couple of weeks to successfully collect the data. When done, it clearly shows battery usage, allowing you to find the real culprit of battery usage through graphs, ranking lists, and detailed phone battery data.

Clear cache and data from Google Play services

A simple first thing you should try is clearing your Google Play Services cache that may have been bloated with an excess of unnecessary information that is causing you stress.

To do this, go to “Settings -> Applications and notifications -> See all xx applications -> Google Play services -> Memory and cache -> Clear cache”.

If you’re still suffering from battery drain, the most drastic step is to clear your Google Play Services storage, which will require you to sign in to your Google Account later.

To do this, go to Settings -> Apps and notifications -> See all xx apps -> Google Play services -> Memory and cache -> Clear memory.

Fix your Google Play Services battery drain by turning off automatic syncing

If you have more than one account connected to Google Play services, this could explain the battery drain problem. Since Google Play Services has to search for your location for new events in your area, emails, notifications and more, they run continuously in the background. So that’s even more memory.

You can fix this by turning off automatic syncing for multiple accounts like email, calendar, and Drive, as well as third-party apps like WhatsApp. In particular, your Google account manages the synchronization of many applications.

To do this, go to “Settings -> Accounts” and then tap on each account to check if syncing is turned on or off. When you click “Google Account ->” Account Sync, you will see that many applications are probably syncing automatically. Think if you need all that sync!

If you get the “Sync On” message, tap “Account Sync” to access this app and control various sync options for that app. Of course, if auto-syncing is very important to you for a specific app, leave it turned on and try turning off auto-syncing in less important apps first.

Sync errors can drain the battery

Whenever Google Play Services tries to sync data but can’t, sync errors appear, of course. These errors can also be the reason why you need to charge your phone more often than before. Take a look at your contacts, calendar, and Gmail account to see if you can spot any errors. Try removing any emoticons you may have in any contact as Google doesn’t like it.

You can also try removing and re-adding accounts to try and fix these sync errors. Turning off cellular data in your device’s settings for a little over a minute can help as well, but be sure to turn it back on.

The app requests your location

There are many applications that will ask for your location. The problem is when they do, they ask for it through Google Play services, which then use their GPS to get this information.

1. Open the apps that request your location and turn off location permissions by going to “Settings -> Apps & notifications -> [App name] -> Permissions”.

2. Tap the “Location” slider to turn off location syncing, which may reduce battery consumption by Play Services.

Uninstall updates from Google Play services

It may sound a little weird, but sometimes updates fail. For this reason, if your battery is running low due to Google Play services, you can try uninstalling updates from that service.

1. Go to “Settings -> Apps & Notifications”.
2. Select “Google Play Services” from the list of applications.
3. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner.
4. Select “Uninstall Updates”.

5. Restart your phone and see if that changes anything.

Install an older version of Google Play services

Sometimes the latest version of Google Play Services may not work as expected. If you notice increased battery usage since updating Google Play Services, you may need to roll back to your previous version of Google Play Services (at least until the latest version works as expected).

1. To revert to the selected version of Google Play Services, follow the directions above to “uninstall updates” for the Services, then go to the Google Play Services section in APK Mirror .

2. Scroll down and tap on the Services version one or two versions before the last one (ignore beta versions).

3. You will see that there are dozens of variants here. There are three things you need to know to download the correct variant:

• SoC architecture of your phone
• Your phone’s screen DPI
• Your Android version

4. You can find your Android version by going to “Settings -> About Phone”. You can find other stuff on the website likeGSMArena.

5. With that in mind, download the correct APK for your phone, allow the browser to download it when needed, and then install it.

Frequent questions

1. How to update Google Play services?

Check for updates to Google Play services by going to “Settings -> Apps and notifications -> See all xx apps -> Google Play services}.

If there’s an update available for Play Services, you’ll see it on this screen.

2. Can I get a beta version of Google Play Services?

Yes. If you want to play with the latest features of Play Services and stay ahead of what the app has to offer, you can become an app tester byregistering on this page.

3. Are Google Play Services spying on me?

Something like that, yes, although how despicable you think it really depends on your sentiment for Google’s data collection, which is a very important part of their modus operandi. Tons of apps, from Maps to WhatsApp, and even a phone app, from “Home Phone” to Play Services, to keep you informed about what you are doing. To avoid this, you really need to “off-Google” your phone, which is too big to deal with here at this point.

4. Can I remove services from Google Play?

You can do this with your rooted phone, but at this point you will lose access to those Google permissions like Play Store, Google Maps and basically all Google apps as well as many other third parties. Basically, it’s a big commitment, even a lifestyle choice, not something to be taken lightly.

Now that you hopefully have resolved your battery drain issues, why not fiddle around to make your Android look like an iPhone?