Asus Zenfone Max Plus Tips and Tricks

If you have forgotten your custom unlock pattern or PIN, then don’t panic.

After 5 unsuccessful tries a button should appear saying Forgot pattern or PIN. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password.

The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern or PIN.

If it isn’t accepting your Google ID or password, then try the following options:

1) First, go to the following URL: https://myaccount.google.com/u/1/device-activity

Then when you see your device, select Revoke Access.

Then at the bottom of the page, you should see Generate New Application-Specific Password.

Enter a name and click on Generate Password.

A 16-digit pass code should be generated.

Enter this new password in your Android device, along with the correct Google ID.

2) If that doesn’t work, then go to: https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery

Choose one of the recovery options. Then enter the email you used when you set up your device.

Follow the options depending on your situation and you should be guided through an option to get back into your phone.

If none of the above works, then you may have to hard reset / factory reset your device.

Before you do this, it’s recommended that you plug it in to a computer and copy across any files (particularly your photos in the DCIM folder). However it may not be possible to do this on some devices as it will be locked.

If you see an insufficient storage available error, or find that you’re running low on your phone memory (not to be confused with your SD Card memory), then there are a number of ways to fix this.

This error can be very frustrating as it often means you cannot install new Apps, and some Apps may not even function properly because of this. We hope this guide is as comprehensive as possible, but if you find other methods, then please suggest them in the comments below.

The first step is to determine exactly what is eating up your phone’s storage memory. To do this pull down your notifications menu and select Settings and find Storage. It may take a while to calculate so be patient. From here you can see whether it is your Applications, Pictures, Audio or otherwise, that is causing the problem. Obviously, if it is photos or music, then the first step is to remove some of these (ensuring you do actually want them deleted of course!).

If it is your Apps taking up space, then you have a few options, as follows:

Uninstall Apps – Go to Settings – Applications – Application Manager and swipe to the ALL tab at the top. Then look at the bottom of the screen which shows how much free space you have. Often you will have very little Free memory, which is the cause of the error. From here, press your Menu button and select Sort by size. This will show you which Apps take up the most space and which will make the most impact by removing. Obviously don’t delete things like Gallery (which will remove your photos!), Internet (which is your browser), key Google Apps and so on. However if you have Apps you don’t use anymore, then uninstall them to free up space.

Clear App Cache (with an App) – For this method, you will need to download an App called Clear App Cache. However, this will only work if you can uninstalled enough Apps to free up enough space to install the App itself. Once installed however you can quickly clear the cache of all of your Apps, which should free up some space.

Clear App Cache (manually) – Apps such as Gallery, can sometimes generate a large cache (image thumbnails in this case) which can be cleared to free up memory. First, go to Settings – Applications – Application Manager. Then swipe from right to left until you’re on the ALL screen. Then press the Menu key and Sort by size. Then choose the largest App by pressing on it. Then select Clear Cache. Do this until you’ve cleared as much space as you can.

Dump your log files – This will only work on some devices, however it doesn’t cause any data loss. It simply cleans up your App log files. Go to your phone dialler App and press: *#9900# Then Select delete dumpstate/ logcat and hit OK.

Move Apps to SD Card (if you have one) – Settings – Applications – Application Manager. Flick from right to left until you get to SD Card. Then simply tick which Apps you’d like to move from Phone memory to SD Card memory.

Clear Browser Thumbnails – This one seems to be a bug in some versions of Android and/or some phones, but is a very quick and effective fix. Simply open your stock Android Brower, which is usually found by opening the Internet App. Then at the top right check if you have multiple tabs open. If you do, then swipe them off the screen one by one until you have none left. This can clear up hundreds of cached thumbnails which never clear unless this process is carried out. It has been known to clear several gigabytes of space for users that don’t close their tabs often.

Check folder/file sizes – The last method is great and involves installing an App called DiskUsage from the Play store. Once you install this it will show you which folders are the largest. You can then drill down to find out exactly what is consuming your precious space before deciding to remove the files or folders. You can also integrate the App with File Explorer Apps to easily manage your files. When it comes to removing files and folders it’s sometimes easier to do that by plugging your device into a PC and browsing the folders that way.

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.

While typing emails or notes, you can simply tap the space key twice and the phone will insert a full stop / period.

This option may need to be turned on in the keyboard settings.

This can be found in Settings – General management – Language and input.

When browsing on your phone you may notice images are quite blurry. This is because your telecom provider is compressing the images before they are downloaded on to your phone.

There is no way to prevent this, but if you have a WiFi connection nearby, then you can turn that on. This will mean that all browser downloads come through the WiFi connection, rather than the carrier, and your images will appear normally.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom one which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your home screen, go to Settings – Lock screen and security – Screen lock type and choose Pattern.

It is also a good idea to untick Use visible pattern. Then if someone is watching over your shoulder while you entering your pattern, it will be harder for them to remember the pattern.

If you have forgotten your unlock pattern, then after 5 unsuccessful tries a button will appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’.

Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password. The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern.

If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you will have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

You can backup your phone contacts either through your Google account or by exporting it as a vCard file. Here’s how:

GOOGLE ACCOUNT

Method 1:
1) Go to your Android phone settings.
2) Click account, and make sure your Google account is already logged in your device.
3) Doing this automatically syncs all your data to Google, including contact numbers.

Method 2:
1) Open the Android Contacts app.
2) Go to Settings.
3) Choose Move device contacts to Google.

To efficiently backup all your contacts, you have to make sure that these are actually saved on your device, and not just on your SIM card.

To check if your contacts are already successfully synced or backed up on your Google account, just go to contacts.google.com, and log-in to your Google account to see if your contacts are already there.

EXPORT CONTACTS AS A VCARD / VCF FILE

1) Go to your phone’s Contacts.
2) Go to Settings and export contacts as a vCard file.
3) Alternaively, in Contacts, go to Settings and select Share. Then select which contacts you want to export. Then choose a method to export to.
4) This will collate all your contacts in one .vcf file which can be saved on your SD card or uploaded into a file storage service like Dropbox.