Motorola Moto G7 Plus Tips and Tricks

Android 9 (Pie)
Phone: Motorola Moto G7 Plus
Factory OS: Android 9 (Pie)

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.

If you regularly visit a website you can add a shortcut to your homescreen which can be quite useful, rather than entering the web address each time you want to visit the site.

You can either do this to an existing Bookmark, or simply a page you’re visiting:

1) Open your Browser App. Enter the website you want to bookmark. You may need to wait for the whole page to load first. Then press the phone’s Menu button or More at the top and select Add to home screen.

A pop up will appear, so choose “touch & hold to place manually” or “add automatically”.

2) Then bookmark the page.

To lock your screen while you are watching videos, simply press the power button.

This will disable the touchscreen buttons while the video is playing, but it won’t turn the screen off like the lock key normally does.

Note, this will only work on video files that you are playing that are stored on your phone. It won’t work for videos played within websites, such as YouTube videos.?

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.

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 from bottom to top to close Apps.

If you want to remove the Google Search bar, simply tap and hold the bar and a remove button will appear at top of the screen, drag the bar to that remove button, and the bar will disappear.

If this is not working, go to Settings – Applications – Application manager. Then swipe from right to left so you are on the All screen. Scroll to Google search and press Disable.

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 homescreen and installing the widget) and start typing the name of the contact you want to dial. This will quickly filter the correct contact.

The most common and effective way to copy photos to your PC (from your Motorola Moto G7 Plus) is to do it via a USB cable. Just plug your phone to a PC using a USB cable and wait for a notification to pop up on your phone.

This notification usually tells you that your device is charging. For some phones, it prompts the user to choose from several options. Just swipe down the notification and choose either “Transfer Photos” or “Transfer Files.”

For smartphone users who don’t see such notification, you may go to Settings → Developer Options → Networking → USB Configuration then tap on MTP (Media Transfer Protocol).

After that, check “This PC” on your desktop and see if there is a removable drive for your phone. The drive would be named as a Removable Device or it would bear the name of your brand or phone model.

Click on the drive and find the “DCIM” folder. This is where all photos and videos from your camera are stored. You can use the search bar function of the folder to find it quickly.

Using Google Photos to transfer photos on your Motorola Moto G7 Plus
Alternatively, you can use Google Photos to copy photos from your phone to PC. This can be done when you sync and back up all your photos and videos on Google Photos. To do this, just follow these steps:

  1. Make sure you have set up your Google Account on your smartphone.
  2. Open the Google Photos app on your phone.
  3. Then go to its Menu (you can find this at the top).
  4. Find Settings then look for Back-up & Sync
  5. Tap / check to turn on back-up and sync.

When you do this, all your photos and videos will be saved simultaneously to your Google Photos account (via WiFi). To retrieve these photos on PC, just turn on your PC and go to photos.google.com.

Then sign in with your Google Account, and you will gain access to all your backed-up photos and videos right away! You can click on any photo and download it to save it on your PC. Just click on “More Options” on the upper right corner of the photo, and you will see a download option.

Using Hi Suite to transfer photos
For Huawei phone users, you can use the HI Suite. This program is exclusive for Huawei users, and it provides an easy way to transfer different files from your phone to PC (and other devices). It also functions as a backup device for all data and settings on your phone, and it can be used to retrieve and copy photos to your PC. Just follow the steps below:

  1. Connect your Huawei and PC with the use of a USB cable.
  2. Go to your phone’s Settings and search for “HDB” on the top search bar.
  3. Tap on “Allow HI Suite to use HDB.”
  4. You have to agree on certain terms and policies to make use of the function.
  5. To backup your photos and videos, tap on Backup and select the “DCIM” or “Camera” folder where your images are saved.

You can access all these backed-up files (including photos) on your PC through HI Suite. Just don’t forget to install HI Suite on your PC too!

Transfer Specific Photos Using Google Drive on the Motorola Moto G7 Plus

  1. Since you are using a Google phone you can transfer your photos first to Google Drive. To do this, tap on the GOOGLE DRIVE app on your phone to open it.
  2. Tap on the plus (+) icon from the homepage of GOOGLE DRIVE
  3. From here, you can start uploading the photos you want by selecting them from your storage device.
  4. To download your photos to GOOGLE DRIVE, open GOOGLE DRIVE on your computer and log in to your account. Choose which photos you want and then from the given options, select to download them into your PC.

Transfer Photos from Google Pixel to a Computer using a third party application

There are also different programs you can use to transfer photos from your Google Pixel phone to a computer. These include Mobile Trans – Backup, Free Syncios Mobile Manager, ApowerManager, and Droid Transfer.

Transfer Photos using MobileTrans

  1. Connect your Pixel phone to your computer using your USB cable.
  2. Open the MobileTrans app on your computer and choose BACKUP.
  3. Once your phone is detected, the snapshot will be shown on the screen.
  4. Enable the PHOTOS option from the list of selected data types.
  5. Finally, click on START and your photos will be moved to your computer.

Transfer Photos using Free Syncios Mobile Manager

  1. Install and launch the Free Syncios Mobile Manager app on your computer. Choose BACKUP mode from the list of choices.
  2. The program should turn to the GOOGLE PIXEL to computer transfer window.
  3. Use your USB cable to connect your phone to the PC. There is a chance that you mey have to enable USB debugging mode on your phone to allow Syncios to connect.
  4. Wait for the selected files to be fully transferred to your PC.

Transfer Photos Using ApowerManager

  1. Download and open the ApowerManager on your PC and phone.
  2. Connect your phone to the PC via the USB cable.
  3. On the desktop version, choose MANAGE found on the top and go to the PHOTOS tab.
  4. Choose the photos you want to transfer then click on EXPORT.
  5. Wait for the photos to be transferred and remove the USB cable.

Transfer Photos Using Droid Transfer

  1. Install the DROID TRANSFER app on your PC and phone.
  2. Connect both devices by scanning the QR CODE found on the app’s interface using the TRANSFER COMPANION app on the phone.
  3. Once both devices are connected, proceed to the PHOTOS tab.
  4. Choose the photos you want to transfer and click COPY PHOTOS.
  5. Wait for the photos to be completely transferred to your computer and remove the USB device.

Locking your phone is a great security feature, but when you’re at home it’s normally not necessary.

A featured called Trusted Places enables you to bypass the lock screen when you’re at specific geographic places.

To set it up go to Settings – Lock screen and security – Smart lock – Trusted places. You can also set up the bypass to work when your phone is connected to specific Bluetooth devices such as Smart watches or Audio devices.

You can also override this (i.e. lock your screen when it is at the location). To override, just press and hold the padlock icon on the lock screen.

This may not work on all phones, models or networks.

When using your Calendar App, you will normally be in Month view. To quickly switch to Year view, you can pinch the screen to zoom out.

This is useful if you want to quickly jump backwards or forwards through a few months at a time.

To go from Year to Month, you can do a reverse pinch.

If you would prefer not to be told every time an Application has been updated, open the Play Store and tap on the menu key .

Then select Settings – Notifications.

Then untick/toggle the updates options.?