Motorola Moto Z2 Force Tips and Tricks

Android 7 (Nougat)
Phone: Motorola Moto Z2 Force
Factory OS: Android 7 (Nougat)

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
Or view tips for all Android versions

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone (but not the MicroSD card).

To perform a hard reset, or factory reset, then there are a number of methods to try:

1) Go to Settings – General management – Reset. It may ask for a password. Then select Erase everything.

If the phone is totally unresponsive, even after a reboot, then try the following methods.

2) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons together. Then, while holding these, press and release the Power button (keep holding the volume buttons). The phone should turn on and a menu will appear. Press the Volume down button to navigate to the Recovery option. Press the Volume Up to select (if that doesn’t work, use the Power button to select). A yellow triangle and an Android logo will appear. Press the Volume Down and Volume Up button together and a recovery menu should appear. Use the Volume buttons to move to the Wipe data/Factory reset option and then press Power to select. Again, use the Volume Down key to choose Yes and press the Power button again to select.

3) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Down button. Then, while holding, press and release the Power button. A menu should appear. Use the Volume down key to go to Clear Storage. Use the Power button to select the option. Then when asked to confirm, press Volume Up for Yes.

4) While the phone is off, press and hold down Volume Up + Home + Power buttons at the same time. Then release the buttons when you see the Logo. Use the Volume Down button to go down and the Home or Power key to select. Choose the Wipe data/Factory reset option. Then Select Yes to delete all user data. Then choose to reboot the phone.

5) A final method is to enter the code into your Phone App: *2767*3855# This method will not give you an option to reverse the process, so be careful! This method will only work if you can boot into your phone.

To add a widget, simply long press on a blank part of one of your home screens.

Then select Widget.

Scroll through the list of available widgets and choose one.

It will be placed on your home screen and you can move it around as you desire.

To add an email or phone number to your contacts from a text message, you can long-press on the email / phone number. Then select Copy text.

Once that has been copied to your clipboard, go to your Contacts App and select the Create New Icon.

Enter the contact details, then select either email or phone and long press on the field. Then select Paste to paste the info from the original text message.

If you want to install Apps outside of the Play Store (called sideloading), then go to Settings – Lock screen and security and select Unknown sources.

This setting will allow you to download Apps onto your device that would normally be blocked in the Play store.

Note: use at your own risk.

Checking Available RAM and CPU utilization on your Motorola Moto Z2 Force is very helpful if you are thinking about removing more Apps.

Looking at which Apps drain your RAM, CPU time, and battery will help you decide which of them should be removed from your phone.

To do this, just follow the simple steps below:

  1. Go to your phone settings. You can do this by swiping down the home screen to reveal the notification bar. From there, tap on the gear icon to open Settings.
  2. Look for Device Maintenance → Memory
  3. Alternately, you can also tap on “Data Usage,” then scroll down to see which apps are taking up CPU power.
  4. You may also look for “Smart Manager.” You will see the status of your RAM and Storage in this area. If you tap RAM, you will see a list of apps that are taking up much of your RAM.
  5. For Huawei users, you can look for “Storage” under Settings.

All methods from 2 to 4 can be accessed on the Phone Settings alone. There are certain variations, depending on your phone or unit.

This section should also show what is taking up valuable CPU time. Useful if you think some Apps are draining your battery.

If you see the following errors:
Resting robot
Exclamation point (for rooted phones)
No command

This indicates that your phone is in Android Recovery mode and often appear when you try to recover or reboot.

To fix this, follow these steps:

1. Once any of the three appears, press and hold your phone’s volume up button for 10-15 seconds.

2. Next, without letting go of the volume up button, press and release the power button once. It will display a menu.

3. Navigate around the menu using the volume button.

4. Select Reboot System Now and your phone should be rebooting

Alternatively, you can do the following:

1. When any of the three appears, press and hold the power button for 2-3 seconds.

2. Then, without letting go of the power button, press and release the volume up button, once. It will display the same menu.

3. Select Reboot System Now and your phone should reboot.

If Reboot System Now doesn’t work try updating first.

To open a web page in a new tab, find a link on a web page. Then press on it and then choose to open the site in a new tab.

By default, your phone will recognise swear words, but insert x’s instead of the word.

To change this, pull down your menu, press General Management – Language and input – On-screen keyboard.

Then you may need to select your voice input system (e.g. Google voice typing).

Then toggle the Block offensive words option.

There are a number of ways, as below. The first two of these may be disabled on some networks/carriers or Android versions however.

1) Go to Settings – Apps. Then scroll down to Contacts Storage – Clear Data. This option may not be available on all models.

2) Go to Contacts. Then hold and press on a contact. Then choose the All option at the top of the screen and select Delete. .

3) Go to Settings – Cloud and accounts – Accounts.

Then scroll down and select Google.

Next, change the slider so that Sync Contacts is disabled.

Then go to Gmail and delete all of your Contacts from there. Then re-sync your phone.

4) Download an App called ‘Delete All Contacts’ and use that as a last resort.

The methods above will delete contacts from the Phone only, not the SIM card.

There are a couple of ways to bring up one of your contacts.

First, while in your Contacts App, simply start typing in the search bar at the top of the screen.

Or else a quicker method is to use the Google Search widget (installed by long pressing on a vacant part of your home screen and installing the widget) and start typing the name of the contact you want to dial. This will quickly filter the correct contact.