Google Pixel 3 XL Tips and Tricks

The phone has the ability to send quick response text messages if your phone is ringing but you can’t answer it.

To change these, go to your Dialler App and press the Menu or More button.

Then select Settings – Quick Responses.

From here you can add or edit your reject messages.

Like all previous versions of Android Pie has hidden easter egg. Easter eggs are always fun to check out on newly-named Android builds, and this one is no different. However, this may be the first one that actually might be a little hard to look at for long periods of time. Android P’s first Easter egg features a P with a very colorful animation.

To access this follow these instructions:
Drag down the notifications screen and go to Settings.

Then scroll down to About Phone. Then tap on the Android version and a popup will appear with more options (such as baseband version etc..). From there, tap on the Anroid version option at least 5 times.

You should now see a vector tracing Pie logo for Android 9 Pie. You’ll always get a different pattern from the last, as evidenced from jumping to recent apps and back to the Easter egg. As time goes on, more and more rings will appear. You can also pinch to zoom on it. Just don’t stare at it for too long unless you want to get a headache.

Having notifications come through on the lock screen can be handy because you don’t have to unlock your phone to see what the notification is about.

The problem with this is that someone may see the content of a notification (a text message for example) which you would like to keep private.

To change this setting to only display that the notification has arrive (rather than the actual content), then go to Settings – Sounds and notifications.

Then under the Notifications section, select Notifications on lock screen.

Select Hide content to only show the notification and not the content itself.

You can also select to turn Lock screen notification ‘ON or OFF’ from this menu.

To save an image in an email or in the browser, long press on the image and a menu will appear allowing you to save it.

For images inside text messages, you might have to press and hold on the message itself, rather than the image.

If you like to use vibration mode but you don’t want to disrupt a whole room due to the Google Pixel 3 Xl vibration intensity, you can adjust or reduce that accordingly. Just follow the steps below on your phone:

1. From your home screen, swipe down to open the notifications menu.
2. Tap on the Settings icon (usually a gear-shaped one at the top-right portion).
3. Scroll to Device then tap “Sound” or “Sounds and notifications” or “Sound & Vibration.”
4. Under Sound, tap “Vibrations” or “Vibration Intensity.”
5. A bar will appear where you can slide left or right to adjust the intensity of your phone’s vibration. On some phones, users can select from either Light, Medium, or Strong.
6. Tap “OK.” This will automatically save your preference.

This generally works for the Google Pixel 3 Xl and most Android phones.

For Huawei users, you may need to follow a slightly different method. If you use a Huawei unit, follow the instructions below instead:

1. From the home screen, tap up to locate Settings.
2. Then tap Settings → Strength
3. Swipe up or down to adjust the vibration intensity. That’s from Strong, Soft, or None.
4. Tap “OK.”
5. You will be automatically reverted to the home screen. Don’t worry, your preferred vibration intensity is saved at this point.

Android now comes with some great battery management built into the OS.

Pull down your notifications screen and select Settings. Then go to Battery ?and you will see some useful stats such as the time remaining. There are also two other options: Power saving mode and Ultra power saving mode. Select one of these to really make your phone last the distance.

Be warned that these can limit your device quite considerably.

You can also increase Battery Life by minimizing the numbers of Apps running in the background.

If you would prefer to correct your own mistakes, then go to Settings – System – Language and input.

Then select the keyboard you are using and press the Settings icon again.

You should be able to find a predictive text option on this screen.

While in the Camera App, there are two ways to zoom in or out.

First, you can use Volume Up and Down keys.

Secondly, you can pinch your fingers on the screen to zoom in and out.

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 top 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.

Create Cloud Storage Backup – You can also select to create back-up in Google drive. For that Go to Settings – Backup & Reset and turn Back up data ?ON? and add your back-up account (Preferably the same account from which you signed in on Play Store). ?Then open Google Account icon and from there you can select folders for which you want to create back-up, you can also set frequency of creating back-up e.g. daily, monthly or weekly etc. Now you can delete data from folders for which you have opted to create back, but before that please make sure that back up has been created. You can access these files by signing in to Google drive using you Gmail email and Password.

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 Browser, 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.

A useful feature of Android Pie is what’s called Screen Pinning. This allows you to lock your phone to one App. Perfect if you have a young child that you don’t want messing with your phone. Or if you want to lend your phone to someone to make a call, but make the call only.

To enable this go to Settings – Security & location – Screen pinning. Then go to the App you want to Pin and press the Multitask key. Then look at the most recent and tap on app icon -pop appears then select Pin.

To un-pin an App just press the Multitask key and the back key together.