Huawei Nova 3 Tips and Tricks

A handy feature of Android is to quickly clear your notifications.

Simply pull down your notifications bar by swiping your finger from the top of your phone downwards.

Then when you see each individual notification, swipe your finger left or right to clear each one. You can do this with your Apps too – press and hold the multitasking button. Then swipe left or right to close Apps.

Android has improved the facial unlock feature by creating a setting whereby you must blink when unlocking your phone. This prevents fraudsters using a photo of yourself and holding it up to the phone.

To activate this feature go to Settings – Personal – Lock screen and security – Screen lock type – Face unlock. Then setup your facial unlocking.

Then once that is done, go to Face unlock again and tick Presence check.

This may not be available on all devices.

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 – Device – Applications – Application Manager. Then swipe from right to left until you are on the All screen (at the top). Then scroll down to Contacts Storage – Clear Data.

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 – Personal – Accounts and sync. Then press More at the top and choose Disable auto sync. Then go to Gmail (or an account that your phone syncs with) 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.

Android has a feature allowing you to update Applications automatically. This is turned off by default, but you can turn it on.

Open the Play Store App and press the Menu icon in the top left of the App. Then select Settings and in Notification section you can turn Auto-update apps on.

From here you can chose to do this over WiFi only or using your Data connection.?

This tip is relatively obvious, but some users overlook it.

Once you go into your Home/Apps screen you should see a row of dots. This indicates which of the 5 Home/App screens you are on. Rather than flick between each screen, you can simply press one of the dots and you will jump to that homescreen.

Or alternatively, slide your finger across the dots to move between screens.

Normally you can simply insert a SIM card and you will be able to browse the internet using 3G. Sometimes, this must be setup manually however. Before you start, you will need to ask your carrier or Telco for your APN settings.

Once you have those, go to Settings – Connections – Mobile networks – Access Point Names.

From here press the Plus sign at the top right and select New APN. Then fill in the details your carrier gave you. Then press the menu button and press Save.

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.

If you like your Apps neatly sorted into folders, then there is a simple way to accomplish this.

First find the first App you would like in a folder. Then choose a second App. Press and hold on the second App and drag it over the top of the first App. They will both combine into a folder.

You can repeat this process to add more.

Once you have done this grouping, you can give specific name to that folder. For that just open the folder (containing different apps), and tap on Unnamed Folder tab and add your desired name.

If you have used up all of your Quick Launch spaces, then there is a trick.

Once it is full, press and drag an App from the homescreen and move it over the top of an App in the Quick Launch area. Then release your finger. This will create a folder containing the original App plus the new one. This is a great way to have access to regularly used Apps.

Once you have done this grouping, you can give specific name to that folder. For that just open the folder (containing different apps), and tap on Tools tab, and add your desired name.

If you call someone regularly this can be useful as you will have a shortcut to them handily placed on your homescreen.

To bookmark a Contact on your Home Screen, then first go into your Contacts App.

Find the Contact you want to add to the Home Screen and press on them.

Then press More or the Menu key and select Add shortcut to home.

Then go to your Home Screens, find the Contact you’ve just added. Press, hold and drag to another position.