Sony Xperia XZ3 Tips and Tricks

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.

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.

If you are not happy with your notification light, then you can change and tweak it. Go to the Play Store and download an App called Light Flow.

You might need to enable the notification light before the App works. Go to Settings – Device – Sounds and notifications – LED Indicator.

Alternatively, for some devices, you can turn?your Notification Light ‘ON or OFF’ and you can also change the color of Notification Light. For that go to Settings – Display and then toggle pulse notification icon. You can change the color of LED light from same menu.

First open your Contacts App and select a contact. Then press Edit at the top of the screen. You should then see some options to either take a photo or select a photo from your Gallery. To enable this feature, make sure the contact is saved in the Phone memory.?

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.

To adjust your screen brightness, there are two options:

1) Simply drag your finger from the top of the phone down to pull down your quick settings screen. Then at the top there will be a brightness bar. Drag this left or right or press Auto.

2) Drag your notifications screen down and select Settings. Then under Device, select Display – Brightness. Then choose the desired brightness setting.

You can also select Automatic brightness to let the phone decide for you.

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

This might not work on all models.

The Do Not Disturb is a very useful feature if you are in a meeting or somewhere where you want to block incoming calls or messages.

To enable Do Not Disturb, drag down your notifications and go into Settings – Sounds and notifications. Then under the Notifications section, press Do Not Disturb.

Once this is setup, you can allow exceptions for certain Apps. To set these up, press Allow Exceptions, then App notifications. You should now see a list of all of your Apps. Choose one and then select Set as priority.

Now, when notifications come in via this App and you have Do Not Disturb enabled, you should see the notifications.

The Play store contains thousands of great Apps, but there are time that you want to restrict access to these Apps for whatever reasons. This can easily be done.

First, open the Play Store App and swipe from left to right to see the settings. Then press Settings and scroll for Parental controls.

From here you can chose settings for Low/Medium/High maturity levels. Great for preventing access for young people.

The most common and effective way to copy photos to your PC (from your Sony Xperia Xz3) 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 Sony Xperia Xz3
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 Sony Xperia Xz3

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.