Sony Xperia M5 Tips and Tricks

Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Phone: Sony Xperia M5
Factory OS: Android 5.0 (Lollipop)

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Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
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If you would like to unmount your SD card for whatever reason, then drag down your notifications menu from the top of the screen and press the Settings icon.

Then find Storage – SD card – Unmount SD card.

There are a number of ways to get your IMEI number.

First, you can go to Settings – System – About device – Status. Scroll down and you should see IMEI listed on the screen.

Secondly, often the box that your device came in will have the IMEI printed on the label of the box or on the invoice.

Thirdly, if your device has a removable battery then open the cover and remove the battery. Your IMEI should be on a serial number plate and your IMEI number should be shown there.

Lastly, from the Dialler, enter *#06# and it should be displayed on the screen. This won’t work on all phones and all networks however.

First open your Contacts App and select a contact. Then press Edit at the top of the screen.

Then should then see some options to either take a photo or select a photo from your Gallery.

If you want to remove the Google Search bar, then 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.

Drag down your notifications screen and press Settings. Then select System – Language and input. Then under Keyboards and input methods, press the little Gear icon.

From here you have various options including Haptic feedback, Vibration intensity and so on.

You can also adjust notifications for various functions.

To take a screen shot, hold down the Volume Down and Power Buttons together (i.e. exactly the same time).

This will save the current screen to your phone’s memory card. They will be stored in the folder /Device Storage/Pictures/Screenshots. You can get to this folder by going to your My Files App.

If you want to access your quick settings more quickly, then instead of swiping down with one finger, then use two.

This should take you straight to the quick settings, however it may not work on all phones and models.

Android cleverly uses Picasa to sync photos between your account and your phone. Sometimes however, this means that you will get duplicates appearing in your Gallery when they’re not actually on your phone.

To stop this from happening, and so you only see photos on the Phone or SD card, then follow these steps:

Drag down your notification menu from the top and click on the Gear icon to bring up your Settings. Then select Accounts and Google. Then select your Gmail account.

You should see a list of options that are ticked. Scroll down to the one that refers to Picasa and untick that.

Now that’s done we want to remove the thumbnails from your Gallery, so we need to refresh the Gallery. To do that, swipe down and go to Settings again. Then select More – Application Manager. Swipe across to show ALL Apps. Then find the Gallery App and press Clear Data.

This will erase the thumbnails in your Gallery, so don’t panic that your photos have disappeared. Just wait for the Gallery to re-build its index which could take awhile.

But the good news is that your Picasa Albums shouldn’t be there anymore.

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 Add to contacts

From the Contact list or the Messaging list, swipe from Left to Right to call a Contact.

This might not work on all models.