We’ve been hearing the same ever since we started to set up a Google account on our Android smartphone; “Google Play services drain battery like hell”. When we’re done with a new ROM/software update, it’s equally as important to set up a Google account in order to sync your Gmail, contacts, people details, and everything related to Google. So it’s quite unavoidable to get rid of the Google services.
The real trouble begins once we set the account up and connect to the Internet. Google secretly communicates with its servers to keep everything up-to-date and to sync data in real-time. As a result, the phone’s being run in the background for hours. This affects your battery (data plan as well) and you eventually end up with a battery-hogging scenario.
Being a ‘Super User’, I don’t usually flash GApps (Google package to flash over custom ROMs to avail Google apps and services) to minimize the battery consumption and data charge. However, I often face difficulties with not having a Google account on my phone. For all of these, I’ve found an impeccable solution.
MicroG is a package that lets you add your Google account to your phone without flashing the hectic GApps. It uses minimal (in fact, the fundamental) Google APIs and frameworks to get Google work on your Android phone. One of the major benefits of using MicroG instead of GApps is that it doesn’t cost you battery drain, Period! I’ve personally tried this and it doesn’t even consume 1% of the power while providing all basic Google services.
What You’ll Need to Install MicroG Package
- A GApps free phone
- Root access with Xposed framework installed
- Custom recovery
- A couple of minutes from your busy life
1. Install 0% Battery Drain Google Packages with MicroG – Guide
- Download the MicroG package and copy it to your device.
- Reboot your phone into recovery and flash the MicroG zip
- Reboot system
2. Setup MicroG to Add a Google Account
- After flashing the zip, open the Xposed modules and enable the NLP and Fake Gapps modules.
- Open the MicroG app (from your app drawer) and enable Device Checking & Google Cloud Messaging.
- Now tap on Self Check and give permissions to the listed items (For Marshmallow users, you can give permission via Settings>Apps>MicroG>Permission)
- Do the same for the NLP app from the drawer.
- In the UnifiedNLP app, choose Configure location backends and enable ‘Apple WiFi’.
- Reboot your phone.
- Once the reboot is done, go to Settings>Accounts and add a Google account.
3. Install the Google Play Store
- Download the Play Store APK from any external site like APKmirror.
- Create a folder in root>system>priv-apps as ‘Phonesky’.
- Using root permissions, paste the apk to root>system>priv-apps>Phonesky folder and rename the Play Store apk to Phonesky.apk
- Change the permission of both the Phonesky folder and app to ReadWriteExecute ReadWriteExecute ReadWriteExecute (777).
- Reboot your device.
- For contact sync, install the CardDAV app.
I know, the process explained here is somewhat hard to follow if you’re a newbie user. But as far as the battery drain and phone performance is concerned this is worth trying. This MicroG package lets you install the necessary Google apps and services thus preserving your battery while in an idle state and avoiding wakelocks.
I hope this guide helps you install the 0% drain Google package while having access to all Google apps and services. This fixes the Google Play battery drain issue and automatic syncs. Let me know if you need help with any of these steps.
