Puneet Ghanshani

Chief Architect at Microsoft

9 minute read

Applicable to: Some Android Phones (incl some Galaxy variants)

This article is for those who are facing battery drain issues with some Android/Galaxy phones, especially, after upgrading to Android 4.3.  I faced this same issue and did a lot of research to find out the right fix.  This requires rooting the phone along with few tweaks and has worked for me.  This can also work for non-Galaxy phones but the names of services may differ

As a word of caution - please understand you are trying this at your own risk and responsibility of any loss of data or whatsoever.  So please take a backup of your phone.  Also rooting may void your warranty too.  The author of this article does not take any responsibility of inaccurate or partial information on this article or any loss of data or whatsoever.

Do I really need to root?  Yes, because otherwise disabling all the services becomes difficult

Here’s the fix.  Before you start, ensure that you have sufficient (hmm, let’s say 80%) juice in your battery.

Step 1 – Backup and Stat Measurement

If you have patience, download the app Battery Stats Plus and let your phone drain for a day so that you know which apps are causing the maximum drain.  Take a note of these apps

Take backup during this time using any backup application on the play store.  I used Carbon Backup for taking backup of my apps, photos and data.  You can read through this article on A-Z of Nandroid to follow more backup instructions.

Step 2 - Root the Android phone  (except Galaxy S3 LTE)

I own S3 LTE so I can suggest on rooting S3 LTE.

For other Samsung Galaxy phones, you can check this article on AndroidGeeks

For non-Galaxy phones, you can check root process at xda-developers

Step 2 - Root the phone Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE

    • Install the USB drivers from here or from Samsung’s website
    • On your phone,
      • go to Settings > About.  Tap the Build Number 7 times to enable Developer Options (that’s a key to the secret)
      • go to Settings > Developer Options.  Enable USB Debugging

  • There are several ways to root your Galaxy phone.  I used Odin3-v1.85 and CF-Auto-Root applications.  Click on the links to download them
  • Power off the phone
  • While switching it ON, press Volume Down + Home + Power button.  This will get you to Download Mode
  • Run Odin3-v1.85 as Administrator (Admin is must)
  • Now connect your Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE with your PC using USB cable.  You will see a Message ‘Added’ and a COM port in Yellow.  This means the connectivity has been established
  • Click on PDA button and select the CF-Auto-Root file (CF-Auto-Root-m3-m3zh-gti9305.tar.md5) and select Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time
  • Click on Start
  • This will push some packages to your smartphone and once the process is completed successfully you will have an application called SuperSU (Super User) on your phone

image

Step 3 - Remove the bloatware

The upgrade has pushed some services that have unfortunately caused the battery drain.  So you need to block these services.  As a super user, you can uninstall these services too.  But I will not advise doing so.  It is better to disable the services.  This means the service packages still remain on your phone (occupying some internal memory) but they are disabled from running.

    • Go to Play store and download any bloatware blocker.  I used NoBloatFree and SystemCleanUp
    • You can use TitaniumBackup to take backup of all apps on your SD card just to play safe
    • Now you will see lot of services running that offer services that you may not be interested in.  You can Freeze / Disable those services.  Remember that you do not have to Delete them, you just have to Freeze / Disable them
    • Please be sure that you do not disable any launcher application.  TouchWiz is launcher
    • My list of disabled apps.  If you are using some Speech to Text and translator services you may choose to not disable S Voice, S Translator

AllShare ControlShare Service
AllShare FileShare Service
Bubbles 1.0
ChatON
ChatOn V
DirectConnectManager
DirectShareManager
Exchange Services  (if you are not using your phone for your Office Exchange accounts)
Kies via Wifi
Nearby Service
PageBuddyNotiSvc
Phase beam
S Health
S Memo
S Note Provider
S Translator
S Voice
Samsung account
Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps Widget
Samsung Books
Samsung Calendar SyncAdapter
Samsung Cloud Data Relay
Samsung Cloud Quota
Samsung Contact SyncAdapter
Samsung Games
Samsung Hub
Samsung Link
Samsung Music
Samsung Push Service
Samsung SBrowser Bookmark SyncAdapter
Samsung SBrowser Tab SyncAdapter
Samsung SNote SyncAdapter
Samsung SyncAdapter
Samsung WatchON
SamsungHubUpdater
Share music

  • You can also disable some additional apps, if you are not using them, like weather apps, news apps, clock widgets, planner apps, etc.
  • If you face any issues after disabling any application, just go to Settings > Application Manager > Select the application > Enable
  • Disable USB Debugging so that Antivirus does not raise it as Security Alert
  • If you want to reset your root counter to 0, you can buy Triangle Away app from the Play Store

Step 4 - Preventing more juice

Now this would prevent faster battery drains but you can make it even better.  Install a battery saver like JuiceDefender or DS Battery Saver.

After doing these steps, here is the snapshot of my battery drain after full recharge with almost full working day (during work hours) -

droid-mem

Step 5 – Let me know your feedback

Well, actually there are just 4 steps.  The fifth step let's you share your experience.

Let me know what worked and what did not by commenting.  If all worked, share it with others :-)

You May Also Enjoy