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SD card trouble
I have a 16GB Samsung Galaxy S5. I filled the memory so I bought a 32GB SD card to move my media onto. I copied the Media onto the SD card,  made sure everything transferred properly, and then deleted the media on the device memory. A few hours later,  I turned the phone off, switched batteries, and when I booted back up, a message popped up saying that the SD card was damaged. The phone will not recognize anything except that its installed. Please tell me there is a way to fix the SD card and recover my media with minimal loss! How can I do it?

Maybe you can download AParted from Google play store and from there go to tools and choose your sdcard  (mine is Part1 FS:fat32 Size:7888mb because my sdcard is 8GB I checked the first one) and then check your sdcard which you will know because of the size and choose repair and click apply, wait, you can apply it several times then reboot your phone and check if it is fix.
Hope it helps!


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Lock screen doesn't show notification on Android Lollipop
After my Samsung S5 has been updated to Lollipop (5.0.1), notifications re. new mail, text, facebook, etc. don't show on my lock screen. The only thing showed is my network operator.
Now I have to unlock every time to see why my phone made a beep/sound. Any way to bring the info back?

Go into settings and then into Sounds and notifications. There should be an option called "While locked". Tap into that option and select from the list to show notifications on the lock screen.

That middle option is not available on my nexus 5 and choosing "show all content" just doesn't work. I'm on android 6.

@Startec - See my answer below.

I am using Android 6.0.1, so this may not work for some.
I used it for WhatsApp, see comment below.
Go to
Settings -> Notifications -> ADVANCED (at the top right) -> (Choose the app you want) -> (tap the little info icon at the top right) -> Notifications -> More settings -> Popup notification -> Always show popup
(see image below).
I tested that this setting is what makes the difference, since setting Only when screen "on" did not show notifications in locked screen.
But this is a setting from WhatsApp, as I could access it from within WhatsApp as well.
I could not find a setting from Android for doing this (neither on a per-app basis or as a global setting), so I wonder whether it is up to each app to have a setting like this. This makes this post partly an answer and partly a question!
Note: In Android 6, settings for Sounds is separate from Notifications.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Clock issue with Motorola Razr HD Maxx (stock 4.4.2 firmware)
I have a Verizon Motorola Razr HD Maxx, running the latest firmware (182.46.15.XT926). My phone was dropped and the screen shattered about 6 months ago. The Razr was powered off and left alone while I switched to an older phone until I could find the time and money to get a screen replacement. Having just done so, my phone is now in mostly working order. I can browse on 4G and make/receive test messages and calls.
However, the date/time on the phone are completely inaccurate. It is currently reporting the date as 3/15/2015, and the time as 6:52 as of the time of this post (while it is 10:56 AM EST, 5/21/2015 in reality). Manually attempting to change the time does not work - After modifying the time and selecting done, the change does not persist.
I do not appear to be the only one with this problem - others have reported it online (see here and here for example), but no solutions have been posted which worked. I am curious if anyone here has input as to a solution.
This is a huge impediment for me, since many apps rely on the time and any SSL cert checking will fail due to the incorrect date, preventing access to Google Play.

What time settings have you tried? Have you set it to manual, or let it auto-update from network? Is the device rooted?

The devices is not rooted - totally stock firmware, just with apps installed via google play (nothing sideloaded). I have tried setting the time to manual (changes don't stick for date or time, though timezone will stick and adjust the displayed time by the correct number of hours). Enabling 'Automatic date & time' to use network provided time does not appear to do anything. I have done so with and without the sim, rebooted in and out of safemode, and every combination thereof to try and get the phone to correctly pull time from the network.

'Automatic time zone' correctly identifies my time zone as eastern when it is enabled (e.g. i manually set to mountain time, enable automatic time zone, and the phone switches to eastern)

OK, that limits the possibilities. I don't see how that could have been caused by the screen broke (if it wasn't there before), but that might be coincidence. A firmware update might solve it. If there is no such, ClockSync app might help; though without root it cannot adjust "to the second". Still worth a try.

Any suggestions on getting ClockSync installed without access to google play? An inaccurate clock means I can't do anything over SSL

Check my list of sync apps; for ClockSync it has a download link for the .apk. You might also wish to take a look at Racoon (find the links at the bottom of this page), which is a PC client for Playstore.

I installed ClockSync, and running in rootless it isn't able to do anything. It navigates to the date & time settings, there's a notification at the bottom that it's going to set the time to the actual time, but when the counter hits zero nothing happens and it resets.

Sorry to hear that! I'm not used to non-rooted devices (I root new devices almost before unpacking) – and to my knowledge, the limitation was just "diff must be at least 30s". Looks like that's changed with some Android version (or with the app). Not sure whether you'll have more look with one of the others from that page (which you could download using Racoon); I'm out of ideas then, unfortunately.

OK, software can't solve a hardware problem. Took the phone apart and disconnected the battery for ten minutes. Reconnected the phone and the clock reverted to when the device was manufactured (i'm guessing, was 2010). But, could now be adjusted as one would expect.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Archiving old photos to Google Plus (off the phone, but accessible)
I have an EyeFi in my camera. The client on my phone polls it and downloads new photos. My phone automagically backs them up to Google Plus Photos. So from taking a picture, I can access them from any browser or computer syncing my photos with G+. That's really handy.
But this takes up a lot of space on my phone (which has no SD card support). When I attempt to delete a photo from the Photos app, it tells me it's going to die everywhere.
I would like to "archive" my photos in such a way that:

I can access them through Google Plus
I can access them through my phone (in the Photos app)
They aren't taking up space on my phone
I don't have to delete them from "everywhere". I want a copy on G+ until I delete it from G+.

I have some photos from ~2006 in a Picasa web album that are automatically pulled into the Photos app. They aren't on my phone, but I can still see them. This is what I'm after.
How do I achieve this? And bonus points if I can batch this so every month I can run something to archive photos over 3 months old.

If you have a built in gallery app or file explorer delete the photos (locally) on the device via one of these apps (if not install an app to-do so) and then they should stay in the cloud if auto-backup is enabled and ran before deleting them.
This "should" work as it's worked with my phone... But I don't have a lot of experience with smart cameras...


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Android, connecting to a specific wireless channel
I live in a dorm where there is the same wireless network with different channels. How can I choose to which channel I want to be connected?
The problem is that channel 1, which has the best signal so gets automatically selected, is not working properly.
On my laptop I can just select the channel in wicd but I haven't found an app or possibility to connect only to specific channels in Android.
Android version is 5.0.2

What phone do you have?

first gen Moto G


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Galaxy S6 not seen by pc at all
I have one week old S6 and now tried to use adb.
I unlocked developer mode, enabled USB debugging, connected to usb and nothing happened. adb devices shows empty list, lsusb on mac and linux as well as mac's "system information" app doesn't see any new usb device when I connect the phone. Nothing happens in dmesg too.
The phone displays "charger connected" notification. No mtp/ptp notification appears.
I tried to use different computers (two linux boxes and one macbook), different cables, nothing. Other android devices (such as old note2 and some noname stuff) works well.
I tried also other person's S6. Result it the same so I don't think it is some kind of damaged socket or so on.
What's going on? Am I missing something? Maybe some security setting prevents USB from working?
UPD
This doesn't look as a "driver" issue at all. lsusb shows all usb devices even if the system doesn't know how to deal with them.

You downloaded and installed the USB driver appropriate for your desktop computer(s) from Samsung site?

It appears that Samsung has done something special, meaning you need extra drivers in addition to the standard ADB ones. Put your phone's model number in http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads and scroll down to Manuals & Downloads. For at least one model, it looks like the drivers are Windows-only; if you can't access a Windows machine you could try using WINE (https://www.winehq.org), although udev may stop you.

Actually, AFAIR, even devices unknown for the system appears in lsusb so it is not a "drivers" problem.

If you have a custom recovery (or know someone with one), does the phone show up in adb when booted into recovery?

My device (not Samsung but some other) tends to behave in the similar fashion occasionally. In my case, the system detects nothing except that the charging LED shows power status. The solution that works for me is to keep rebooting the device multiple times, until it goes away. IDT whether the issue is with the socket (1.5 yrs old device) or the cable, but the issue withers away.  I know it makes no sense, but you may try this technique it nothing good works. // I once even had to restore nandroid backup.

My S6 is seen by the OS (Ubuntu 14.04) and MTP works but I cannot figure out how to make adb to see it.

@juzzlin you're lucky man!.. Just check udev rules ( http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html )

THE FIX!!! (for me):
In the developer options under the "Networking" category, there is an option called "USB configuration". Click on that and you will see the option "MTP (Media Transfer Protocol)". Turn it on.  ,,, Mine was set to "Charging" for some reason..but instantly connected once I enabled MTP option. I would put this as the answer but I'm required to have 10 reputation points...and I ain't got time to be earnin'.. The only thing I got time for now is MEDIA TRANSFERRIN', BABY!

The fix for me was to find update the driver via the Windows Device Manager. Once I did that it all worked.

Sad but true, it's a hardware issue. As far as I understand, the board containing usb socket needs to be replaced.
PS:
Also the worldwide warranty that I was promised to have in official (listed on samsung.com) retail shop doesn't exist.

I was getting very frustrated with my Samsung Galaxy S6 and my new Dell Precision M3800 and USB connectivity. Apparently the S6 is not fully compatible with USB 3 connections. I could not get it to connect (other than charging) to any of the 3 USB 3 ports on my laptop (no usb 2 on the new Dell). It connects fine to my older laptop (USB 2), so I decided to try connecting a USB 2 hub to my new Dell and the phone to the hub, and it works!
So, Samsung, please fix this!

This also worked for me.

I had this same problem.  Samsung buried the option to turn USB debugging on deep inside the Settings menu.  You have to enable it in order to use ADB with the S6 (or any other Android device)
Have a look here.

Nope. This is a hardware issue. Authorized service center confirmed it but refused to perform warranty repair.

Dood its not samsung its with every Android phone. Samsung didn't buried that thing.

It's not a hardware issue, or a computer driver issue.  It's whatever the USB "driver" is on the S6 itself, because a factory reset resolves the issue.
I can't figure out what it is that breaks it, whether it's a setting change or an app getting deleted.  If anyone's aware I'd love to know.

Hard reset had no effect, that was the first thing I did.

I was having similar issue with my S6 Edge(+). Found to be junkie usb cable. Switched to a quality cable and device showed up.

OP on the question noted that they already tried with different cables and that didn't work out, so I'm not sure how this answer would help.

Yeah, the only advice that may help for similar situation -- "Don't trust Samsung and their partners".

I'm having a similar problem but my phone use to actually work when I connected it through USB. Maybe this is a software update issue? Sometime ago after updating I noticed the problem.


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Facebook app not compatible on Android 4.3
Facebook was crashing on Huawei Y530-U00 on Android 4.3, so I wiped it and tried to install it again. Play Store says that "Your device isn't compatible with this version".
I tried what is being said in the Facebook support: https://www.facebook.com/help/instagram/231705083624002
but it didn't work.
What can I do?

You could try installing an APK manually.

Go to Settings → Security and enable installation of apps from unknown sources.
Visit APKMirror and click the blue download button. Once the download finishes, click the notification and install the app.

If that doesn't work, you could try the above process again with Facebook Lite, although it looks significantly worse, and may or may not work properly (possibly depending on the country you're living in).
After you've finished installing APKs, you should disable installing apps from unknown sources.

Go to Settings → Security and disable installation of apps from unknown sources -- this is important to do, because else you could be tricked into installing a malicious app.

I downloaded the app from the first link bit when I try to install it I get live wallpaper apps are not supported

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2754481&page=7 suggests that the fact that the phone is missing live wallpaper support makes some games crash, presumably this is the same issue (no, I don't know why Facebook would need a live wallpaper...). There is unfortunately no way to enable support for live wallpapers without flashing a custom ROM, and there are currently none for the phone.
Does Facebook Lite work? It's intended for lower-end phones like this, so it may well.

Well, the app simply is not compatible with your device, I don't see a direct fix for that but as workarounds, there might be a couple of tries.

Download the older version which is the latest version that supports the phone in question. Disable the auto-update if you went with this approach. The problem with this approach is that you'll have to find an older version APK source, but such APK sources are not official usually, so beware and use the APK carefully.

Use a normal browser like Google Chrome and bookmark the Facebook page as an icon on the home screen like an application. In Chrome, this could be done by opening the menu on any loaded page and clicking on "Add to home screen".

Notice that the second approach that I recommend and got some advantages over the app anyway. For example,

Using the browser is much less power wasting compared to the app due to my experience.
Also the browser is the full site so all features and options are there especially the new ones immediately when they're added.
Also, I sometimes need to see the site like a desktop user's view, and that is possible via Chrome and some other browsers as well like Firefox and UC. Even built-in browsers support such features.
As a disadvantage (noted by @iBug), a browser uses more data on cellular so more fees. Although I never experienced this and I browse Facebook a lot but it makes sense.

A browser uses more data on cellular → Less views and more fees

Makes sense. But less views ? last time I checked, there are some options available in the browser based FB which were not in the app. I added the point you mentioned about the fees.

As existing answers have mentioned about installing manually from the APK, the latest Facebook version that still supports Android 4.3 is v281.0.0.36.124 (APKMirror), which was released in August 2020 and has a variant for Android 4.1+.
Further version after that, v282.0.0.40.117 already upgraded the minimum requirement to Android 4.4+ instead.
However, there's no guarantee that the app will still work if there's a breaking change on the server-side, which the end-users can't do anything about it.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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UDP communication between PC and Android via ethernet
1. I am testing with a rooted nexus 5 operating on lollipop 5.1.
2. This is all with no wifi connection.
I am trying to send UDP packets between a PC and an android device with an otg cable and ethernet dongle. When connected the PC thinks the android is an unidentified network(No internet access) and the android recognizes the device as eth0 with an IP of 0.0.0.0.
eth0   UP   0.0.0.0

I add an IP to the eth0 by running the following unix script:
#!/bin/sh
netcfg eth0 up
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.200 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 dev eth0
ping -c 1 192.168.1.1

After running the script eth0 appears in the command line as:
eth0   UP   192.168.1.200

I am using wireshark to track packets and when I try to open an interface between the PC and android I get an error as follows:
(Error opening adapter: The system cannot find the device specified. (20)).
Also, when I try to PING the PC from the android I get 100% packet lost.
So it seems like I don't have a connection between PC and android.
Any input on the topic would be very helpful.

Are you connecting the N5 and PC directly or via a router? IP information about the PC would also be helpful, like its IP, netmask, and whether it's DHCP or static.

N5 and PC are connected directly. End game is to use it as a hardware interface, no different then say I2C or RX.  DHCP is enabled,  IP 169.254.57.56, Netmask 255.255.255.0

I used 169.254.57.55 in the script.

Makes sense, though if you're looking to connect the two via IP networking they'll need to be in the same subnet. Your PC is self-assigning an IP address because it can't find a DHCP server. Try statically assigning your PC 192.168.1.1 with the same 255.255.255.0 subnet.

Yes! Just had to set IPs and default gateways correctly. Thanks for the help, I don't have much of a networking background. More of a hardware guy.

Glad it works! I've copied my comment to an answer - if that wraps up your question, mind accepting it?

[From Comments:] If you're looking to connect the two via IP networking they'll need to be in the same subnet. Your PC is self-assigning an IP address because it can't find a DHCP server. Try statically assigning your PC 192.168.1.1 with the same 255.255.255.0 subnet.

I think reverse tethering would solve your problem.
Android reverse tethering steps:
Note: Works only in a rooted Android phone.

Connect Android device via USB.
Enable USB tethering. To do so, go to Settings → More... → Tethering & mobile hotspot → Usb tethering.
On host machine, type:
$ ifconfig usb0 10.42.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
$ echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

Command for sudo will be:
$ sudo 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward'

On Android device (for this step you must install ADB on host PC), type:
$ adb shell
$ su
$ netcfg rndis0 dhcp

If it does'nt get the IP address then assign it manually:
$ netcfg rndis0 10.42.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0
$ route add default gw 10.42.0.1 dev rndis0

Now internet would be working in the Android phone.
To check , try the command ping www.google.com.
It works for me.

Android will not give the option to turn USB tethering on with the Ethernet dongle/otg cable combinations i.e it's not a USB type connection.

I tried with Rooted phone & PC with Ethernet connection & it work for me fine.

You are using an otg with an ethernet adapter? Here's an example http://plugable.com/products/usb2-otge100. And there will be no internet connection. UDP is being used as a hardware interface.

I connected my phone with PC using usb

About 4., should it not be "On PC" because you run ADB shell from the PC.


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How can I backup the entire Gallery (photos and videos) to my desktop computer?
The Gallery on my Android device seems to show all the photos and videos, whatever the method to get them could had been (camera, whatsapp, bluetooth, and so on).
I would like to backup them all, but all I have found on the net refers to one nagging method, consisting of syncing it to some cloud (DropBox, for example) storage. This is painfully slow, and I prefer to store my multimedia on my desktop computer, for example by pluging the USB cable or transferring it via USB storage device, SD card... etc.
But the only way to backup the entire gallery to my computer I have found is just the manual method of copying each involved directory that could contain those files. This is like some sort of nightmare, due to:

There are multiple possible directories that I must (nearly) guess, depending of the program that got the photos/videos: camera seems to be at DCIM, WhatsApp at whatsapp, another directory for bluetooth ... etc.
There are two storage drives: the phone itself and the SD card. So the job must be done twice.
Some Windows system (my Windows 8.1 at least does, I don't know why) don't allow concurrent file transfers via USB cable, so I must seek&start the first transfer of files (say DCIM), wait until it finishes, start the second (say bluetooth) and so on.
Restoring such backup requires rebuilding the exact directory structure on the phone, but I could prefer to store all the photos and videos on the same folder on my desktop.

Isn't there a more simple way?
Both solutions involving Android's native or additional software (freeware preferred) are accepted.
If not possible, I could accept a solution involving to send the entire gallery to any cloud/internet and recovering it on the desktop.

@LôrdRalfAdolf, any Windows version would enough. I did not think the operating system for the desktop computer would bother, because I was expecting some sort of Android's method/software that would extract/send/copy the gallery content to SD Card, USB storage... etc. Anyway, if needed I can use Linux.

do you have a usb device (storage device )  that can be plugged to your phone ? I can put a methode to do it simply from android directly

Indeed, @LôrdRalfAdolf . Sending the gallery to the desktop computer via USB storage or SD card is accepted. I have edited the original question to reflect it. It could even be a better method for many people that simply backup data to some external USB huge-sized disk.

I don't prefer cloud backup because of high priced internet plans in my country, and the answer by Lord Ralf Adolf didn't work for my device somehow. Ultimately, I had to find a solution which is supposed to be no pain only gain. Here we go with one mentioned below.
Notes:

The solution requires a USB cable, MTP enabled (available in Android 4.xx and 5.xx) in Android device, (devices with USB Storage Mode would work as well), and Windows 7/8 in PC.
If MTP somehow doesn't work in your PC, you've no access to USB cable, or your device doesn't have MTP feature, then you may very well host a server on your Android device, preferably a WebDAV server. See my answer here for  know-how.
Tested the solution with Android 4.2.1 and Windows 7.

What this answer would achieve?

Works well with/without USB Storage and MTP support in Android device.
Backup multiple directories easily.
Can backup two or more storage drives by choosing the following solution only which would require repeating the instructions, or (following+linked) answer which would make it happen in one-go.
Fully automatic once final instruction is executed; no need to do manual copy for each file/directory.
Copies exact directory structure so that you don't have to worry during restoring the data.
Needs no Internet connection (other than to download some required software here).

A bit of explanation before going to the kernel
The problem with most of the media backup apps (I noticed) for Android is that they don't really preserve or care for the exact directory structure, which means you can mine images from anywhere in the Android but you can't really mirror the directory tree for saving the file in your destination storage, i.e. (analogy)
copy F:/DCIM/Camera/DSC11*.JPG C:\Users\Firelord\Desktop\Test\

is easily possible and available by many Android apps and Windows softwares, but not
copy F:\DCIM\Camera\DSC11*.JPG C:\Users\Firelord\Desktop\Test\DCIM\Camera\DSC11*.JPG

The same holds true for many Windows Explorer alternatives for Windows 7/8 including FreeCommander, Multi Commander, Explorer++, XYplorer and other tools like SmartCopy.
(Note that I tried the listed ones but could not find the desired functionality with ease (auto copy with tree). Let me know (to edit) if your experience differs.)

Anyhow, the trick was to find a software for Windows which allows to take media backup(not disk/media imaging) with synchronization feature. Three such candidates that I tested and found easy(GUI) are SyncToy, FreeFileSync and PureSync. (All are free for personal use.)
I recommend FreeFileSync and the instructions for its usage are mentioned below.
Instructions:

Download FreeFileSync(free).
This program might not create Start Menu entry. For a 64-bit Windows 7, the program's directory location is C:\Program Files\FreeFileSync and a relative one would be for 32-bit Windows 7. Execute the FreeFileSync.exe (right-click → Run as Administrator).
(On my machine this program freeze out for few seconds during its startup but eventually stabilizes and doesn't behaves alike.) The default screen for v7.0 would look like:

Connect your Android device into PC using USB cable, and choose MTP for data transfer.
In FreeFileSync, you would see two fields with name Drag & Drop at the top of left and right pane. They hold the location for the source and destination storage. Edit them:

For left pane click Browse → My Computer(left side) in the opened window → select your device (say HTC One; under Portable Devices) → choose either Internal or External SD card of Android device → Select Folder(at the bottom).
For right pane click Browse → My Computer(left side) in the opened window → select the backup location (say D:\Backup) →  Select Folder(at the bottom).

In FreeFileSync under the Menu bar, go to Actions → Filter settings. Here you can include the filetypes and exclude the folders from mining or backup. E.g. If I want to backup only .jpg and .png image files from my Android but I want to avoid those in the Android, Data, any .folder or folders that were created by some apps and includes irrelevant files with such extensions, then my filer would be:

Note that the filter is not complete in the picture as opposed to text in the answer
Tweak as much as you want since it's easy. I seriously advise excluding Android folder. Click OK when done with custom filters. (Note that I've not added but you may add video extensions too like .mp4, .mkv, etc.)
In the Menu bar, go to Actions → Synchronization settings and choose any of the variant available. For the first backup I prefer Mirror to backup all the filtered files. Click OK at last.

In the Menu bar, go to Actions → Start comparison -- this will show the filtered files in left pane (source) and files available in right pane (destination; would be empty for a new backup folder). (You can always switch the panes by clicking the blue <> icon available between the two panes.) An e.g. would look like:

In the Menu bar, go to Actions → Start synchronization -- this will (as obvious) synchronize the two folders based on the setting you chose in Step 7. An e.g. of process, and completion would look like:

We're good to backup anything here. Note that for restore the steps (as obvious) would be same but the locations at left and right pane would differ. Also, during restore, my phone freeze out a lot (the reason could be a low class SD card in device or altogether a program issue itself, IDK!)
Issue with, and solution for, multi-storage Android devices
One issue that a multi-storage Android device user would've noticed is that you'll have to repeat the instructions to backup both External and Internal SD card.
This can be avoided by using a file server in Android. See Method#1 or Method#3 in my answer here. Just make sure that the file server should have its root directory at /storage so that in the FreeFileSync all storages (would be listed as folders now) can be mapped for backup.
I tried and it worked well!
Status: Objective Completed

I could cover SyncToy and PureSync here, but the latter freeze out the whole time whenever I click any option and about the former: it's intuitive and very easy in "exclude filters" but doesn't give much flexibility in synchronization variant (I would've ended up deleting images in device due to lack of such, but was stopped somehow. :) )
I think the objective can be achieved by using find and rsync tools in combination on GNU/Linux.
Let me know other options if you come to know any, or technical mistakes in my answer.

This method has a great advantage: the exclude directories list. If this list is fine-tuned, it is a lot easier to tell what not to copy, than telling (as long as it involves a great research effort) what to copy. It is not a one-click method, but the not so clean Android design for this matter does not allow much simplicity.

@SopalajodeArrierez There is a windows software and Android app named Syncdroid which IMO could achieve the objective. I didn't try this because its app has negative reviews on Play Store (some folks said the backup corrupted images). // On the other hand, we have Windows 7/8 "Pictures and Videos Import" feature but it doesn't allow any exclusion which is painful. // There are apps like foldersync, filesync that can sync Android with PC, but they are limited in feature since you'll have to manually choose every folder to sync.

Depending on your operating system, you can use picture manager programs. I will list two free software, one for Windows, and one for Linux (I am a Linux user, so maybe the Linux method is better).

Under Windows (any version in the screenshots, it will be XP, which was the easiest to get on a virtual machine)

Picassa: a powerful image manager and editor with a lot of features. I will be showing the only feature we need (importing photos from Android phone).
make sure you install your phone's drivers (see your manufacturer's website to grab the latest version).
download and install Picassa.
connect your phone to your PC and open Picassa.
click on File >> import from ... (it's in French in the screenshots)

this window will show up. Click on the spinner and choose your phone. In my case here, it's an HTC one (Android).

wait for a few seconds until the photos show up like this.

you will see every single image file on your phone, sorted by the date of creation. You can select a full day by clicking on the little clock, or select a single picture by clicking on it. The same goes for unselecting.
once you have picked the needed pictures, look at the bottom of the Picassa window. It looks something like this.

choose the right options for you: where you would like to save the pictures, how do you want the pictures to be organized in sub-folders, and if you wanna delete the original pictures from the device (the phone) or not, then click on import.

how is your device mounted to the PC ? (as usb mass storage or as MTP ) you can change that in the settings of your phone and try again with picassa

Android 4.4.x and above doesn't have USB Storage feature (please ignore if you know this) and I was using MTP with Picasa. Tried restarting at both ends with no good results sadly.

Picassa works quite well for me but only for photos. Videos need to be imported manually (e.g., via Windows cut & paste) and I need to delete the photos manually after importing.

Seeing this is an old question, wanted to update it with the solution I found in 2019.
I was looking for an answer to this same question.
My method was the similar to @firelords answer, connect via FTP to phone via SHAREME program, and use freefilesync to synchronize the DCIM folder to the PC.
But some quick research later, I found that the following works better!
The best solution I found was to use Resilio Sync (formerly known as BTSync or Bittorrent Sync).

The key advantages I have found are

It's free (allows upgrades but free version is good enough)
Can use only WIFI (faster sync when on the same network)
Stores to any other device where you have installed resilio sync
NO MANUAL effort, automatic just like google photos but with full resolution! and bi-directional syncing! (main advantage over the previous method)

In my case I Set it up in less than 2 minutes on my phone! I was already using sync on my pc and just needed to add the link to the folder and it was ready to go!
I just had to enable camera backup and share the link to my pc.

found another app mylio (not tested) but apparently similar to resilio sync

Only valid for DCIM backup? Remember that the original question asks about "multiple possible directories".

No all the folders you want!! It works great. Start the app when it's charging at night :)

QuickPic has a Cloud Backup function that supports many services, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Owncloud, etc. Just run the app, make sure all your images or videos are showing up, then access the cloud backup from the app settings.

Install Picasa on the computer (Google has discontinued this software, but you can get it from here). After you plug in the Android device, it'll ask for import into the library.
In Settings of Picasa, there's an option to physically move photos/videos to desired folder. Check it and you are done.
Next time you plug in your Android device, it'll physically import everything for you. And, only copies new photos/videos. So, you are good to go.

When you plugin your device and have something like Picasa or Lightroom installed, it should show an option to import pictures from the device. If it doesn't show up, try connecting the device in PTP (Photo Transfer Protocol) mode (Choose the PTP option from the USB Connected (or similar) notification by tapping on it).
Restoring this backup, is, however, manual - as each file (or set of files) has to be later copied to an appropriate location on the Android device later during restore.
It is also possible to write a script to check all image files on the device by file extension and cutoff size (so that you don't end up copying thumbnails, say 1KB+) and puts these files, preserving the directory structure and dropping them into some backup folder. I don't have much experience in this matter, so I am not covering this aspect here.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Will removing /system apps give any usable space on lollipop?
In earlier versions I've pushed updated apk's to /system manually from time to time as it annoyed me to have an extra older version of Google+, Play store, Youtube, Keep, actually ALL the preinstalled google apps as well as a lot of Sony Apps (Album, Music etc.)
This would give me 300-500Mb for a cleanup as some of these apk's are quite large.
This is a tedious approach and would break stuff from time to time, but I am unsure if the simpler approach: Merely deleting the old system apk would give me any useable space?
In older versions the clear answer would be "no" as each partition was allocated a set amount of space, but after (I think) Kitkat, Internal storage was mounted as an emulated partition or something like that.
I have been searching for more information regarding this, but have not found anything yet. Hope there is a knowledgeable one hidden among you (preferably with sources) ;)

Nope. Deleting things in the system partition has no effect on the amount of usable internal storage - the system partition is reserved for the ROM and mounted read only by default. Only deleting things in /data and /sdcard will affect the amount of space available to you.


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Need notification sounds for all messages, including follow-up
With updated Lollipop on Samsung S4, the notification is sounded for the first message from a contact, but not any of the follow-up messages.  Annoying to constantly check for reply messages by unlocking the home screen with the phone in my hand all the time.  All settings are set to full sound and vibration.  Any suggestions?

with Android if you go to Google Play and look for the app "messages plus", download and install, you can even customize  the screen so that you will have balloons instead of just colored lines on the side.balloons for you and the  responder can be made different colors and it will perform the same as the old app we used under KitKat or the other operating system but with this app you will get alerts each time the other party responds

with Android just go to play store and type in messages plus. you can also customize it to have the different colored balloons for sender and responder as well as other customizations I don't know the actual link because I downloaded from Google Play Store. but if you go on to your computer and in Google search type messages plus you should be able to copy the link from there

I have the same problem since updating to lollipop.  You might try another app for messaging called Messages Plus which can be downloaded from the play store.  It will alert you after every response.  I'm not crazy about the format but at least it does alert you after each response.

Could you mention the link for this app?


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I cannot find my current location while offline in google maps
Before I could easily find my current location being offline using offline maps but at present in the updated Google maps I am not able to use it. It shows the location while I am online, and once I go offline the location no longer appears. What to do?

To get a location fix while offline, GPS (not just location) needs to be enabled. You must have either "High accuracy" or "Device only" enabled under Settings->Location->Mode. "Battery saving" does not allow use of GPS.
When you are offline, the time to get a location fix is much higher than when you are online.
There are two reasons for this:

WiFi based location is very fast. Without being online, you cannot use WiFi location.
GPS works much faster when you are online, due to the benefits of Assisted GPS. Without Assisted GPS, your GPS receiver needs to do a search for satellites itself which can take a few minutes. GPS also requires sufficient visibility to satellites, so don't try to use GPS while underground or in so-called urban canyons with lots of skyscrapers blocking the sky.

Summary: make sure GPS is on and wait a few minutes in an outdoor space where you can see the sky. Your location should appear.


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Is there a way to separate downloaded videos and camera videos?
So I recently got a Galaxy S4 and switched from Apple to Android. I like to download music videos to watch offline but when I moved the videos onto my phone, I found out that the music videos are stored in the same location as where the camera roll saves videos. On Apple you there was a built in app that could store videos while videos recorded by the camera could be stored on the camera roll. Is there a way to do this on Android? I used my micro SD card to move the videos to my phone by creating a new folder on the SD card named VIDEOS.

Are you using the default gallery to access the videos? Default might be doing this. I use Piktures gallery app which allows you to see camera and other videos separately, not to mention the GUI seems much nicer than the default one (I don't have S4 but it shouldn't matter). Anyhow, if you only intend to watch videos, then why not use a powerful multimedia player like MX Player? It keeps the videos separated and does the job well.

When you go to the gallery you should be able to see a Folder named VIDEOS under which you can see all your videos listed..

I guess, you just need to sort the view in your default gallery app. Try sorting videos album vise and your problem will be over.

Try Redirect Pro,
It's a file organizer with some really cool features.
Link to Google Play

While this might be a valid answer, it definitely needs some improvement. Could you please [edit] it and 1) include a link to the product and 2) a few more details on what it is and what it does? Thanks in advance!


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How do you type Unicode characters using hexadecimal codes on an Android phone?
The title says it all. I want to be able to type special characters from all over the unicode range into web pages, but don't know how to. Is there an app or plugin or whatever that allows me to bring up an option while in Firefox or Chrome on my Android phone?

There might be a keyboard with that functionality. I have tried many keyboards but can't remember ever seeing that though :(

I was just now interested in the same thing. I couldn't find any keyboard app that lets you do that "in-place" – in the overlay, without leaving the app you are typing in.
But otherwise, the app UnicodePad lets you do just that: entering hex if you know it. There's also a lookup table, search and everything.


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ASUS fonepad 7 (K00Z) is giving an Upgrade. But is the new firmware safe to install?
I would like to know how safe is this upgrade? 'Cause I've heard many people ended up bricking their tablet after upgrading the firmware (like the gentlemen in this forum). So, I would like to know is the upgrade safe?
Also, what am I going to gain with this upgrade? What enhanced features does Kitkat has that Jellybean doesn't?

I contacted ASUS support and they replied that the upgrade is optional. I did it anyway but didn't find any noticeable performance improvements/changes.


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Lost Contacts after 5.0.1 update
After updating to 5.0.1, I had bad problems with wifi connections. After trying every possible solution without success, I decided to do a backup and reset. First though, I copied both the card and phone folders to my laptop.
After the reset, the wifi problem seems to be fixed, but now all the contacts are gone. For whatever reason, they were not synced with my google account.
Can I find the contct data somewhere in the folders that I copied onto my laptop?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Simon
Samsung S4

What where you running before?

Android4.2 I think... The contacts were still there after the upgrade, they disappeared after the backup-reset.

Maybe this post is useful for you: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/41459/31639
Basically you could try searching the sqlite database location under /data/data
By default it's /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases (at least for me (currently running GPE on my GS4))
Anyway, just copying some folders from internal storage is far away from a correct way of backing up contacts etc. and if your contacts would be stored in your Google account they would've been automatically imported again after relinking your Google account to your device.
If you gained back access to your contacts you should check the correct storage of your them and move them to your Google account if necessary.

thx for the answer. Im not a phone tech, and was basically just following instructions from an android help website. (not this one). I cant understand why the google account didn't sync the contacts, but they definitely are not there. BVut logically, I would have have thought that the contacts are stored as data somewhrer on the phone, as you can still access them with no internet.


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How can I stop Google Play Services from updating automatically?
I have a OnePlus One with Google Play Services version 7.5.62 (1927436-438)
The most current version of Google Play Services is 7.5.66 (1939950-438) which unfortunately has a bug of some kind that continually gives me the message Google Play Services has stopped.
Is there a way to prevent my device from updating to the newer version of Google Play Services?

Related: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/104842/is-it-safe-to-uninstall-google-play-services-app - Although I expect you're only really after a temporary measure until the issue is fixed (and you can then allow it to update again) so this may not be an issue.

@bmdixon I would like to avoid uninstalling the application altogether as I would still like to have the benefit of it.

I'm not aware of a way to prevent it updating, someone else might be able to help on that front though. In the meantime, have you tried clearing cache/data for Google Play Services? Are you able to uninstall it and let it auto-update again to see if it is just a glitch?

Yes I've tried that, a few other people have reported the same issue as well if you click the link in my question, although one has said that clearing cache and data worked. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. Thanks for your help so far :)

If you've unlocked root, there's another option. You can move the latest working GMS (10.0.84) to system partition and block auto-updates by creating empty folders with the APK name.
KitKat (tested):
· APK goes to /system/priv-app/com.google.android.gms.apk
     · libs go from /data/app-lib/com.google.android.gms-{1, 2}/  to /system/lib/
     · mkdir /data/app/com.google.android.gms-1.apk /data/app/com.google.android.gms-2.apk
Lollipop+ (presumed):
· APK goes to /system/priv-app/PrebuiltGmsCore/PrebuiltGmsCore.apk
     · libs go from /data/app-lib/com.google.android.gms-{1, 2, 3, 4}/  to / system/priv-app/PrebuiltGmsCore/lib/arm/
     · mkdir /data/app/com.google.android.gms-1.apk /data/app/com.google.android.gms-2.apk /data/app/com.google.android.gms-3.apk /data/app/com.google.android.gms-4.apk

(posted this on the »Google Play Help Forum« thread earlier)

you can do this if you have a rooted mobile easily,  install rooted apps like lucky patcher or freedom. They have options for stopping auto-updates of google play services..
But it has risks of soft bricking your mobile.. so do it on your own risk!!

I have looked at Freedom and can't see any option to disable Google Play Services updates, only to disable updates of the Google Play Store, which is different.


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How to clear Stock Browser cache when browser isn't installed?
Edit: This question was made when I assumed that apps put their web cache into the stock browser's own cache. This is not the case. Apps usually put this data into their own app_webview folder. I'll keep this question up though since Izzy's answer is a good one.

I have a Sony Xperia E3 running Android 4.4.2, and after using AppInventor for some time the inbuilt browser (aka the stock Android browser) has taken up a large amount of storage space with the cache.
Since the stock browser technically isn't installed I can't access the menu to clear the cache.
Is there any way to clear the cache without factory resetting/rooting?

As a side-effect of clearing all caches of all apps: boot into recovery-mode, and select "wipe cache". That wipes caches of all apps, but keeps your apps and data themselves intact.
If you have usb-debugging activated and adb available to use, there's a command doing the very same:
fastboot erase cache

This comes in handy especially for devices where you cannot access the recovery-mode.
Hint: you might be tempted to suggest adb shell pm clear com.android.browser for the very same purpose, restricting the purge to the specific app. Note that this is not only clearing the cache, but all the app's data as well. And it requires "elevated permissions" (i.e. root) to be executed – which is probably why it returned "failed" when you tried. The full command would then read:
adb shell su -c "pm clear com.android.browser"

I don't think that the phone has a recovery mode. I tried every button combo with no success. This proves that

Although I'm going to try and flash the new boot loader that Sony is providing now.

The latter will provide exactly that, as far as I've read: a pretty convenient recovery-menu. So following that update, you should definitely be able to follow the steps of my answer :)

Just tried using Flashtool (by Androxyde) to unlock the boot loader so that I can flash the latest version to it. Turns out that my phone model cannot have its boot loader "officially" unlocked according to Flashtool, and the phone's dev menu. I'm not sure if I'm missing anything.

Argh, I just gave up and factory reset everything. I tried to use adb shell pm clear com.android.browser from my computer but every time it just said "Failed".

Yeah, not all Sony devices are supported with this new recovery, unfortunately. And mentioning pm clear just triggered something in my head – though it is too late now (as you did a factory-reset already), please check my updated answer – for the "next time" which hopefully never comes. As it now should be as complete as I can think, you might also consider "accepting" it  (tick the check-mark next to it).

Always glad to! As it might be useful in several other circumstances (thinking of force-closes and the like), I've just update our cache tag-wiki to include a pointer, making it easier to find :)


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Why does Android boot so relatively slow?
This question is of concern to me (and perhaps many out there) because there is no spinning part in my phone.
My phone has a quad core, 3 GB of RAM, and so much storage space, all SSD-like in nature, with amazing read/write speeds.
With all this, Android (both Android 4.4 (KitKat) and Android 5.0 (Lollipop)) takes some 80 seconds to boot to completion. It takes way less on Ubuntu using systemd or Upstart. (Some users report less than 10 seconds booting time using Ubuntu with systemd and some 20 seconds when using Upstart, with specifications like Intel Core i5 and RAM of 8 GB.)
So, what makes Android boot so slow? And is there anything as a user, I can do to speed up the booting process?
According to the booting process explained (What is the boot process of an Android device?), there doesn't seem to be much differences in the overall booting process compared to a conventional OS like Ubuntu. Where does Android go wrong in the process?

You wrote the specs but not the model name! 2) Are you using Multiple ROMs as well? 2) What's the point in comparing a desktop with a mobile  that differs in OS and HW so much? 3) Which ROM and Android version are you currently using? 4) Have you tried removing apps from startup? 5) Have you compared the difference in boot time between a new ROM and ROM installed with all your apps? // I use Autostarts to remove apps from startup.

Many folks use Xposed modules to do the job. I guess you need to Google for such. May be somebody else can mention them.

@Firelord I'm using only one ROM. Both although running on desktop and phones, both depend on similar kernel if not similar (just compiled for different architectures.) I'm currently using 5.1.1. Have used since 4.0 and the boot speed never increase. Even with fresh installed boot speed compared with when my full apps are loaded, there isn't any significant time difference. Using the autostart, how fast does your phone boot? By the way, I'm on xperia z2

Xposed doesn't work on non rooted phones, if I'm right?

My concern has to deal more of out of the box Android. It's slow. Its true ARM isn't close to processors on PCs, but the speed most phones are equipped with these days, I expected boot times to improve, but it's not. ART was designed to make running apps faster. Who's working on one to make booting faster out of the box?

Not convinced it is ARM because my much older ARM based Chromebook boots up immediately and i mean that pretty much literally.

Few years back, I worked on Android boot time optimization, as a Android developer. Obviously, as part of this work, we first needed to analyse where Android spends time during booting.
Below is the brief findings:
Hardware used : OMAP3430 Board which is like development board on which Stock Android is flashed. On actual commercial/production device, there will be additional specific hardware.
To visualize the boot time, we used a developer tool called bootchart
The most time spend by Android is in following 2 areas:

Zygote process. When android OS is started it will start Zygote process, it preloads classes to create
a shared memory area for applications. This work of proloading of java classes
takes @23 secs for its completion.

Why? Because The zygote class preloading is essential for good performance of the system after boot. So once classes are loaded of all apps, then run-time of app is much faster.

Package manager service.
In logcat output, we can see that Package manager scans 4 directories.
/system/app,
/system/framework,
/data/app,
/data/app-private.

Next, there is a component called Activity Manager which start differents services such as Location service, Telephony service etc. And it takes nearly 11-12 sec to finish this.
Why? Because, The package scan can in theory do some caching of its results after first boot and may check for security vulnerabilities.
If you add up these 2 times, it is about 35 Seconds
You may ignore these numbers in Today's day and age, but the point these number indicate is where Android AOSP code spends time during boot. OEMs have their own set of hardware which varies device to device.
Of course, there are other hardware and software initializations that Android needs to do after these 2 time consuming steps, which can stretch boot time further.

And is there anything as a user, I can do to speed up the booting
  process?

Not much I guess. The Android developer community and OEMs are still working on expediting the boot time but as you may imagine, it is not all that easy and making changes to optimize boot time may end up causing more app load time during normal operations, as hinted by Android framework engineer.

Why is the zygote process image not cached as every good VM does (like smalltalk and lisp)? Why can't the Android GUI come up before the telephony API is ready. Why is all this sequential?  WHY DO WE STILL USE JAVA. There is no reason why Android boot time should be slower then a C64 boot time which means 1 second

Android boot is slow?

My phone has a Quad Core, 3 Gig of RAM ... Android (Both KitKat and Lollipop) takes some 80 seconds to boot to completion.

My phone is only dual core with 1G RAM (Zenfone 4) and I never have that problem. Cold boot in ~60 seconds, reboot in 40-ish (CyannogenMod 12.1).

some users report less than 10 seconds booting time using Ubuntu with systemd and some 20 seconds ...

It depends on the config and what you considered "boot time". My laptop (i5 1st Gen, 4 GB RAM with spinning disk) is considered usable (finished booting) after about 90 seconds. Sure I can delay/disable some of the services to get faster boot time and start them manually as needed. But in my point of view, based on my preference, that won't count as usable.
On PC vs Mobile
There's some differences you should consider when comparing between pc and mobile linux. from CPU down to the kernel. Most notable differences:

Due to the nature of the device, mobile CPU mostly designed with power conservation as main consideration. This greatly affect performance.
Android kernel have some mobile-specific features which may affect boot time and hardware i/o access.
Furthermore, Android kernel known to have compatibility problems with mainline/stable. This is mostly due to vendor's preference to stick with old kernel version that compatible with their device drivers. AOSP Marshmallow runs 3.18.10 while stable kernel is currently at 4.6.2.

So, what makes Android boot so slow?
Why don't we check? :)
If you have access to adb and already enable Developer Options, check the boot log using
adb logcat -d -b events -v threadtime | grep "boot"

on my device, this is the output:
bambang@pamungkas ~ % adb logcat -d -b events -v threadtime | grep "boot"
06-08 04:35:01.417   193   193 I boot_progress_start: 9906
06-08 04:35:03.718   193   193 I boot_progress_preload_start: 12208
06-08 04:35:07.838   193   193 I boot_progress_preload_end: 16328
06-08 04:35:08.158   513   513 I boot_progress_system_run: 16647
06-08 04:35:09.880   513   513 I boot_progress_pms_start: 18370
06-08 04:35:10.204   513   513 I boot_progress_pms_system_scan_start: 18693
06-08 04:35:24.487   513   513 I boot_progress_pms_data_scan_start: 32977
06-08 04:35:28.552   513   513 I boot_progress_pms_scan_end: 37042
06-08 04:35:28.696   513   513 I boot_progress_pms_ready: 37186
06-08 04:35:33.088   513   513 I boot_progress_ams_ready: 41578
06-08 04:35:40.755   513   533 I boot_progress_enable_screen: 49244

As you can see, total boot time from VM start until initial screen drawing by window manager is ~40 seconds. Additional time on firmware & kernel space (on your linked asnwer, this translate to step 1-4) isn't included.
Notice that it takes ~18 secs to process the entire system's apk (boot_progress_pms_*), this translate to ~45% of boot time, which includes:

cleaning inexistent system packages and incomplete installation of packages,
validating installed apps,
setting library path,
etc (see: complete source code of PackageManagerService)

So generally, the total boot time is dependent with the number of packages (app) installed on the device. More app means longer wait during pms process. Additionally, starting activities takes ~5 sec / 20% of boot time. The rest is neither significant nor safely modifiable without deep knowlegde of system behaviors.
Is there anything I can do to speed up the booting process?

Try other ROM. Sony is one of the "good guys" who provide healthy environment for tweakers. I recommend AOSP or Cyanogen. Just be aware of the limitations
Test, don't assume! It's easy to make assumption that A boot slow, B is faster. A simple logcat command like above would reveal some useful infos for basic boot time benchmarking between ROMs.
If you know what you're doing, Embedded Linux Wiki have a list of possible tweaks to improve boot time.

On improving boot time

On your comment
ART was designed to make running apps faster. Who's working on one to make booting faster out of the box?

In my opinion, tweaking boot time is both unnecesarry and provide insignificant gain. Since your phone will, theoretically, stay up most of the time; it's far more important to maintain the system stability (with the tradeoff of longer boot process) to ensure higher uptime and less error.

adb logcat -d -b events -v threadtime | grep "boot" returns empty. I checked on reboot, and still no logs in there matching boot.

@Rexford: hmmm, mine is working just fine. You could try to pipe it to a pager (e.g: less) and search from there: adb logcat -d -b events -v threadtime | less. Or modify logcat ring buffer

For what it's worth, I run Android-x86 in a Virtual Machine under Linux and it boots in about 22 seconds, which is on par with most GNU/Linux distributions and Windows 10 on an SSD drive with a quad-core desktop CPU.
So I don't consider the Android boot time to be particularly slow.

Bear in mind that the question was submitted in 2015.

@AndyYan I noticed, but Android-x86 is much older.

The hardware specs is there; software pressure matters a lot less under such powerful hardware (even after efficiency degradation in VMs).

@AndyYan I agree... but my point is that, by some standards, there's nothing inherent to Android that defines it as slow. That is, in comparison with other fully-fledged operating systems, for similar hardware. I felt this was worth adding.


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Export Chrome for Android's history
Is there a way to export the entire browser history from Chrome under Android, in any file format (CSV, XML, whatever)?
I have Chrome 42.0.2311.111 under Android 4.2.2.

Desktop-based Chrome allows for the installation of an addon that handles this. Its name is Export History. It does not seem to be available for Android; nor is there a comparable item. See the Chrome Web Store for further information.

@wbogacz Is there an extension or a program that you think can export the whole SQLite database into a CSV or XML file? I've written an answer below which can export the database but not into the said extensions.

@Firelord - check this query on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=sqlite+csv+export+is%3Aquestion

You can use Google Takeout to download a JSON file of your Android Chrome history.
You can also download your bookmarks, along with a lot of other Google data.

Chrome doesn't allow backup using ADB and there are no extensions available for mobile version so you should have root access before you proceed further.

Grab the History file from the location /data/data/com.android.chrome/app_chrome/Default/ into PC. A Root Explorer may help.

Install an SQLite manager such as SQLiteman or DB Browser for SQLite in PC.
Both has the option under menu bar to export the database into an SQL file or a particular table into CSV file.

Well at least you now know where the history is stored, so you may find a relevant software to directly export the database into a CSV or XML file.

If the tabs are still open you may find the following useful, via dev.to - When you never close tabs on your mobile Chrome browser. Not quite a solution here, but was what I was looking for when I came across this question.
Export open tabs
Chrome's remote debugging has a remote-debugging-legacy mode that allows you to view tabs on a connected computer via adb.
Set up adb

First, install the Android Command Line Tools from Android Studio.
Enable developer mode on your phone by going to Settings > About Phone > Build Number and tapping 7 times
Enable USB debug mode from Settings > Developer options or Settings > System > Advanced > Developer options. This menu will only be visible after the previous step.
Connect to laptop and verify with ./adb devices -l. You may need to configure adb and grant permission from your phone.

Connect to chrome remote devtools
Once your phone is set up with adb you can:
# Connect to Chrome Android's legacy debugging API
./adb forward tcp:9222 localabstract:chrome_devtools_remote

# Visit http://localhost:9222 to verify, then
curl http://localhost:9222/json/list > mobile-tabs.json

You should be able to export ALL your history from ALL devices under your Google Account on practically any browser. It's generally easiest to do it from your desktop, however.

Touch the 3 dots on right top of screen.
choose "history"
when it loads, again touch 3 dots and choose "print"
Give new filename to save to
then scroll to bottom of history and choose "older".
after the page loads, repeat the above.
A hassle, but it works for me...
Later you can use various apps to combine the created .pdf files.
Oh, if this works for you, then..
"You're welcome".


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Error in connecting Samsung A3 to Ubuntu 14 (USB); adb unauthorized (no pop up on device too)
I have a Samsung A3 with Android 4.4.2 (not rooted) and a computer running Ubuntu 14. I am trying to connect my device to my computer through USB to be able to perform some tests on it.
I have activated the USB debugging mode.
But when trying the adb devices command, it keeps telling me the device is "unauthorized". Also, no pop-up appears on the phone which makes it impossible for me to authorize it.
Here is what I have already done:

I've updated and upgraded multiples times my ADB version
Installed mtp, mtp-tools;
Configured the USB access for the Samsung in /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules:

#Samsung Galaxy A3
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6860",
MODE="0666" GROUP="androiddev", SYMLINK+="android%n"

Even installed the PPA ppa:langdalepl/gvfs-mtp (usefull only in Ubuntu 12 and uninstalled it later);
Tried to find and delete some previous adb-key file, but there were none. (The device was never connected to that computer before.)
Changed Cables;
I also tried with a Samsung S5 under Android 4.4.2. The ADB command
on those two devices works when on a windows machine.

Do you have any ideas as to why it does not work, or of any thing else to try out without rooting the device?
Thank you for your help.

You might be able to clear the list of authorized devices so the authorization list is reset to its default if it is in some kind of corrupted state right now. You can do this under Settings > Developer options > Revoke USB debugging authorizations.
Another thing that is frequently overlooked is rebooting: rebooting both your Android device and your computer might make it work. Another thing to try is connecting the device to your computer and then disabling and re-enabling USB debugging, my personal experience is that this fixes a lot of ADB problems.
Users on stackoverflow reported that switching the device to camera mode might work as well.
If all else failes, you can also try to manually authorize yourself on the device, using Flavios answer on Stackoverflow:

Move the authorized key file: mv /data/misc/adb/adb_keys /sdcard/adb_keys_backup (you can also delete it if you want)
Send your adb public key to the device (look in the ~/.android directory)
Stop adbd using the command stop adbd as root
Copy your key to the authorized devices list: cat adbkey.pub >> /data/misch/adb/adb_keys
Start the ADB daemon again: start adbd (as root)

Thank you so much for you answer.
Although i did mentioned it i had already rebooted both the computer and the device various times. I had also revoked the USB debugging authorizations a few times and tried switching it to camera mode without getting any results.
I therefore wanted to try your idea to manually authorize myself on the device, but i just could not find the file either on the device or on the computer...

In the end what worked for me was :

Entering root mode on the computer,
Killing all adb processes,
Disabling and re-enabling the Debugging
Using the "abd devices" command again.

It felt really fustrating to loose so much time trying everything twice, just because i was not in root mode.. Thanks again for your time


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Does Andy emulator respond to computer keyboard while playing Android games?
I'm using Windows 8 Pro in Dell laptop. I want to know, is there a way to assign the computer keyboard to the Android games? Screen tapping by the mouse is not enough to have the full control in the game e.g. Temple run, so I need help: Does Andy emulator respond to computer keyboard while playing Android games?

Try the Left Arrow and Right arrow keys or the Z and X combinations in your keyboard. This should work for you.
For swipe functionalities use Ctrl with arrow keys combination,

Ctrl+Right arrow ->  Swipe towards Right
Ctrl+Left arrow ->  Swipe towards Left


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Why do US SIM cards slow down my Galaxy Note 3, and prevent system settings from opening?
I have a problem that seems specific to US SIM cards. They cause the performance of my Galaxy Note 3 to tank, and I can't get into the system settings at all, without rebooting my phone into safe mode.
After a normal boot, when I tap the gear icon, the settings screen comes up briefly, but then vanishes. The same thing happens when I try to open the wifi connections screen, or anything else that calls up the system settings. And overall, the performance is so bad that I can barely enter text sometimes... it's like trying to run modern apps on a 5-year-old phone. But this phone is barely more than a year old.
And it's specific to the US. Whenever I arrive in a new country, I simply buy a local SIM card and stick it into my phone. Sometimes it costs me €10 or even £10 to get activated, but that's still a lot cheaper than international roaming rates. The US has always been a bit harder, because of its proprietary networks and the phone 'locking' craze, and phone companies trying to charge for the SIM cards themselves. I've found the solution to that last problem is to say 'that's outrageous' and start walking out of the phone shop—I always hear pleads of 'we can waive that' when I do. But there seem to be only two GSM networks, and a handful of resellers. They all seem to have this problem—T-Mobile, Simple Mobile, AT&T. The problem goes away when I insert a SIM card I obtained in Australia, Asia or Europe, and I have no problems using my phone there.
I didn't think it was possible for SIM cards to run bloatware or anything like that, but I'm having a hard time coming up with other explanations. I suppose, perhaps, one of my apps tries to do something fancy when I'm in the US. Some US 'security' feature, perhaps?
Any ideas about how to solve this problem?

I believe part of the problem is twofold:

All the US phone providers I tried required manual APN configuration. (I've occasionally had to do this for providers in other countries, too.) Of course, configuring this required access to the settings menu. (I would probably have been able to configure this in safe mode, which allowed me access to the settings menu, if this had occurred to me.)
I have Avast Anti-Theft installed, which includes a feature that denies access to the settings menu, when the SIM card changes. Normally, when I change the SIM card, this doesn't inhibit network access (see #1 above), so other security features, such as the email I receive, makes it clearer that Avast Anti-Theft has kicked in, no matter how much of a doofus jetlag makes me.  I suppose this also highlights a workaround for Avast Anti-Theft. Whoopsie!

I'm pretty sure this is the reason. Unfortunately, I ended up humouring AT&T's opinion that my phone had malware, that somehow only kicked in when I'm in the US, so I wiped my phone, and thus don't know for sure. (I wonder if technical staff in other parts of the world would think malware might attack only their country!)


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Transparent notificationbar/statusbar for Android 4.3
How can i make the notification/statusbar for Android 4.3 transparent, i know launchers like Dodol Launcher, Smart Launcher and Go Launcher has a transparent bar option. But i want it to be like it is in Android 5.0's notificationbar, so if the bar is light blue the statusbar becomes a little darker blue color.
i don't mean to do it in like Youtube, i mean if you can program it into an Android app, like this import system.ui.transparentbar

Are you rooted?

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! This site is for users of Android, which means that questions about development/programming are off-topic here (see the What topics can I ask about here?). Development questions are on-topic on our sister site Stack Overflow. You might also wish to consult Where can I ask questions that aren't Android Enthusiast questions? for a fitting place to your question.

First of all - device must be rooted (which of course voids warranty) for having transparent status bar and navigation bar too. And yes, as @Adem said  Xposed Framework is the popular way to do that. After that you have to do some workaround for proper functioning of the app. There are some tutorials based on this on XDA-Dev website. Also, there are high chances of soft-bricking the phone in the process.

I meant like doing it in Eclipse for an app.

I'm no developer and I don't know anything about that. You could ask this here programmers.stackexchange.com

If your device is rooted you could install Tinted Statusbar (Xposed). This will do what you want.

Could you mention a brief description of the said app? That would make this answer more useful to a reader who wouldn't want to click, find and read a description on some other site.

Be aware that Tinted StatusBar (TSB) requires an enormous amount of configuration; whilst it can automatically detect colours for some apps, you may well need to manually set up colours for each and every app you want it to work with.

I knew about that app, but i meant more for development, in eclipse. gonna edit my question so it makes sense. but thanks


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Chrome infinite loop trying to update - Galaxy Tab S
what's up?
So I recently bought a brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4". Bought it online, waited a few days, got my new tablet through mail! \o/ YEY! Nice, as a regular-heavy-user, the first thing I was to check if it had an update to the lollipop, which it did! \o/ YEY again! Nice, so far, so good.
After the lollipop update it started to update a whole bunch of apps, which is fine. The thing is, the Google Chrome (yeap, the browser) started to try to update... and try... and try... and nothing happened since. It's been like a month or so and througout day and night Chrome is trying to begin the download to update, but it can't. That green running line in the bottom keeps moving forever and nothing ever happens.
Does someone know how can I force stop it from trying to update?
Thanks a lot!

Typical solution for something like this:

Open Play Store
Swipe in from the left side and tap My apps
You'll see a list of apps installed, and at the top are apps that need updates, or are in the process of updating.
Find Chrome in the top section, tap on it, and tap the X on the right side of the status. This will stop the current download.
Head into your main system settings, Apps, and locate Chrome. It may be in the Downloaded section, or the All section, depending on whether it managed to download ANY updates at any point.
Tap on it, and then tap the UNINSTALL UPDATES button. If button doesn't exist, or is ghosted, continue to step 7.
Tap the CLEAR DATA and CLEAR CACHE buttons as well.
Restart your phone to play it safe.
Reopen Play Store and search for Chrome and attempt to manually force an update.
Come back here and comment about what happened.


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Can a looped Android be rooted?
I deleted a system file from my Android (com.android.providers.settings.apk) and now my Android is in a loop. It is a KitKat tablet and I am able to use adb sideload.
Is there a way to root the tablet in these conditions?

Can you tell why do you want to root "in such conditions"? Shouldn't you be trying to recover than to root this device? Anyhow, which tablet is this?

I can't fathom what kind of loop is this? Is this loop some error (in loop) in Android, or a bootloop?

can you tell us what is the tablet model

nJoy HECTOR 8
MTK 8382,Quad-Core,1.3 GHz, MediaTek
njoy.ro/tablets/hector8#specificatii

The tablet is nJoy HECTOR 8.
MTK 8382,Quad-Core,1.3 GHz, MediaTek, 1GB RAM.
link here : njoy.ro/tablets/hector8#specificatii                                                     It has a bootloop and because I do not have a rom to install, I was thinking to try to root it, because maybe after I will able to connect to it and pushing, somehow, the deleted package (com.android.providers.settings.apk)  and so it'll root without installing a firmware I do not have anyway.

If you have a custom recovery, chances are you're already rooted. Try typing "whoami", and in case it returns "root", you have root access.

Unfortunately I do not have a custom recovery. I wiped cache and try to reinstall without success and I lost the root that moment.

I also try to look for a rom but because it is a budget tablet it seems that only the seller has the firmware and not willingly to give it to me. I can only go and pay for a fully resoft but I am not going to receive the rom from them.


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Unable to download facebook app, though having a new SD card
I have an android gt9000 and I'm getting very frustrated because it won't let me download the facebook app and it keeps saying insufficient storage available but I only have one app downloaded and I have a brand new SD card in it.

Click here to see similar questions (might have useful answer for you) under the tag [tag:insufficient-memory].

How do I remove bloatware? What is that even?

Bloatwares are the apps shipped by your OEM in your device in addition to core Android apps. E.g. You might be having some Samsung related apps (by default) in your device which you can't remove but only disable; that's what is known as bloatware. Some consider those apps as bloatware which are mostly useless to a user. Anyhow, they are system apps (supposed to be user apps) and can be removed only after rooting your device. You can use an app like System apps Uninstaller(root required) to remove them.

Android system and data storage is different partition. Are you sure only 1 app downloaded? Try to move your app to sd card from setting or if you have root access try to uninstall bloatware that came with your phone.

IDT removing bloatware will lessen the gravity of the issue here. User installed apps are in /data while bloatwares are in /system.

@Firelord and the data of the /system/ apps are in /data/data/

True! I forgot that.  However, why uninstall when you can disable and clear data of any bloatware.


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Picasa photos in gallery don't show up in photos app or google+ photos
I have some photos that show up in gallery>picasa, but not in the photos app. I know these photos were downloaded pictures from a previous phone, off a received email I believe. I may or may not have deleted them before on the google+ photos list on the web. After switching to a new phone with the same SD card, they are still there, unable to delete in gallery because they supposedly come from picasa web. Please help.

Look here, they are all the photos  uploaded into your account. you can also check this. If they are on either site, they must also be visible in google photos app (if you are connected to the internet). Don't forget to turn on sync all photos in the google photo app, aftewards they will show up or they do not exist.


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Can I recover photos that were being stored in a corrupt SD sector and then deleted after a phone restart?
I have no idea how this is even possible, but let's start from the beginning.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3. I went on a road trip this Memorial Day weekend and took a bunch of photos. The whole weekend I was able to view all of these photos just fine. However, while I was driving back my phone ran out of battery power and restarted (the Google Maps application drained it faster than my car could recharge it).
I did not notice until just now that all of the photos I've taken in the past 10 days are gone. What doesn't make sense is that I also have Google Photos installed on my phone and set to back up over WiFi only, however I connected to two (TWO!!!) wireless networks after I was finished with taking pictures. On neither of them did Google Photos trigger and upload the backups. Of course, now I've set Google Photos to back up over WiFi or a wireless network, so that backups are hopefully immediate.
Before leaving on this trip, I was attempting to add an album to my phone. While copying, I received a message somewhere along the lines of, "The SD card has been unmounted.", but upon a second try, I was able to continue copying to the SD card. I tried to delete four of the MP3s that were copied from this album later, and it would not allow me to. Also, after deleting the folder of these MP3s, it was replaced by the same folder with a single file ~TfsP or something like that.
I didn't have time to copy my files off the SD card and then do a reformat before my trip, so I just went with it like this. I was still able to play my music and, as I said, it supposedly was taking photos that I was looking at a day later.
If anyone knows how a restart of my phone deleted 10 days of photos, I would love to hear it, and if possible a way to recover them.
EDITS: Putting the micro SD card in an adapter and then plugging it into my Epson printer gives the message, "Cannot recognize the memory card or disc." Windows also gives me the option of "Scan and Fix" for drive H: (the SD card), but later says that it cannot access the drive. It is a Sandisk Ultra 64 GB, if that matters.

Have a look into the LOST.DIR directory in ur sdcard..http://android.stackexchange.com/a/62279/27149

Good guess, but no dice. The folder is empty.

When confronted with such situations on a tight budget I have used the HDD software offered in the Hirens Boot CD.
www.hirensbootcd.org/hbcd-v152/
There are a few hard drive recovery options to choose from and I'm sure one of them will work providing the drive is not completely fried.
I have had many success stories in the past few years with the various tools offered by this useful collection.
Be sure not to try to write anything to your drive until it is recovered.
You may even be able to access the folders successfully using one of the alternative file explorers offered. There have been times when windows simply cannot read what Total Commander could.

The only program I could use on this massive disc image is SoftPerfect File Recovery 1.2. I will try this when I get home.

I considered listing the possibly useful programs individually but decided there are a few utilities that may help your cause. Since most of the options are free or opensource you can most likely retrieve only what you plan to use and avoid the 592mb download if bandwidth is an issue.

So it's a funny coincidence, but I had already tried the SoftPerfect File Recovery and did not realize it, having been rebranded to the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. However, I was trying to load the SD card via a USB connection to my printer. I tried it one more time and got it working on Windows XP.

Sadly, it seems that either the filesystem is completely fubared, or the SD card is failing. Whenever I copy a new album to the SD card it becomes a spliced up combination of all my other albums. I was going to try a reformat last weekend, but sadly I forgot.


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USB debugging enabled on phone, but can't debug apps
I am using a custom ROM on my device (MIUI), and I have enabled USB debugging in Settings, but still, when I connect my phone to my laptop and try to debug apps, it is not showing my device.
This is not an issue with other custom ROMs. I am facing this problem in MIUI only. Any workaround on how to enable USB debugging, without flashing another ROM, as this one serves my purpose correctly (only USB debugging not working).
Any help would be appreciated.

Do you mean you see nothing in adb devices command's output? Does it throw any error in this command? Which Android version are you using? Also mention which OS on PC you're using for this?

Yes, in adb devices, it doesn't show my device. No error is thrown. Using android 4.4.2 and Windows 8 on my laptop.

Does your computer see the phone at all, or is it just adb that doesn't see it?

@aij I can see my phone connected,  but its not listed in adb devices.


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How can I remove the SIM Lock on my Samsung S2 LTE (SC-03D) Japan Docomo?
I am looking for a way to make the phone sim free without going to the company's shop and paying for them to unlock it. Anybody know how it can be done? The SC-03D does not have an nv_data.bin file that most galaxy unlocking tools require so I'm at a bit of a loss. It does have an /efs/ partition though.

I found a way and posted a solution to xda-dev:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=60964832&postcount=2
In order to sim unlock the SC-03D it is necessary to first flash a "special" radio. Flashing the radio is possible with a CWM based recovery. Get the latest version of CWM-recovery from this forum and flash it using ODIN/Heimdall:
http://android.slateblue.tk/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=73
Then get the radio to flash from this XDA thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=37564563)
This radio is from the Galaxy Note (SC-05D) so it made my phone very very slow. However, you need this radio because it has options to make the phone sim free. Options which the original SC-03D radio does not. As soon as you flash this new radio boot the phone, run the dialer application and dial:
*#9090#
it might be very slow but eventually you should get to the service menu.
To access more options press [menu] then [Input key]. Then into the text box type:
Q0 (Q Zero, not QOh)
It should bring you to another menu after a second or so. Select these options:
[1] DEBUG SCREEN
[8] PHONE CONTROL
[5] SIMULATION
[6] NETWORK LOCK
[3] PERSO SHA256 OFF
Wait for 30 seconds , press MENU then BACK.
Select:
[4] NW LOCK NV DATA INITIALLIZ
Wait 60 seconds. Reboot.
Congrats you're sim free. You should remain sim free no matter what radio/firmware/rom you flash.
partial credit to FAB:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/fab4_boys/26754215.html
And HomuHomu for the recovery.


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Command to delete full sentences or dictation session?
Is there a way to delete entire sentences when using voice recognition? Perhaps the functionality I am asking about doesn't even exists?

Umm, there's no Google employees on this site, so you're on the wrong site if you suggest us to upvote this to let Google know (no, it doesn't work like that). However, little research proved that there's no "delete" voice command; you have to press the "delete" button on the screen. Unfortunately, I can't find product forum for Google Keyboard (which includes voice typing). You might try to post this on AOSP issue tracker as "Enhancement" instead. (However, we can't ensure it)

edit made, don't take it too seriously.. I doubt "Voice dictation" is pretty high on their list of things to worry about.  But note taken.

That's okay, I understand that this is an actual problem for users who always use this feature instead of typing. Hopefully this gets answers for alternatives/workarounds (I think you need to use different voice dictation app), but I'm not particular experienced in this area.

Hey, it was a good idea!  I filed them with AOSP!  If you wouldn't have mentioned it, it probably never wouldn't have bothered to get done!
174573 Defect New ----   User confirmation to keep buffer after Voice Detection Session ends 1
Vote for this issue and get email change notifications 174572 Defect New ----   Sentence Deletion in Voice Detection Session.


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Why I can't scan the Whatsapp QR from my inbuilt whatsapp scanner?
My whatsapps apps has upgraded to version 2.12.94 and now i am no longer able to scan the web QR code from my whatsapp app inbuilt scanner.
The code is displayed from the web whatsapps but while using the mobile whatsapp to scan the code, the mobile(HTC M8 Android 5.0.1) and PC is not being paired.
Thanks to provide for a solution.

Related http://android.stackexchange.com/a/96561/27149

Welcome to the Android Enthusiasts! This is a quite frequent question here. Have you used our search to check for whatsapp qr? 20 hits with the same question. Does any of the solutions proposed there help you solving your issue?

Not sure if following will Answer your question as exact cause is unknown, but you may try few options.

You must use the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari web browser to use WhatsApp Web. Other browsers such as Internet Explorer are not supported.
you have to scan the QR-Code with the scanner that is built in WhatsApp. Not with some 3rd-party scanner-app
Make sure there is no adware such as "Superfish" that came with some devices.
Make sure you holding the device correctly enough for the QR scanner to work.
Just like using WhatsApp on your phone, you must have a strong and stable internet connection on your computer to use WhatsApp Web, so make sure your computer's Internet connection is active.
If you use WhatsApp Web on a managed Wi-Fi network, such as at your office or university campus, your network might be configured to block or limit connections to WhatsApp Web.
You may try REFRESH the page and if problem still persist, just try Logout and Login.

I would like to know about Superfish having any connection with the question. Could you hyperlink at least one source to back it?

Superfish is just an example...all I meant was, check if any adware is causing any kind of Block. In one of the question in the same site, 1 user reported similar issue and solved it by getting rid of Superfish. Here is the Link.  http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/96546/why-i-cant-scan-the-whatsapp-qr/96561#96561


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Installing CyanogenMod 12 on Motorola Moto G2 (XT1068)
I want install CyanogenMod 12 on my Motorola Moto G 2nd Gen (XT1068) with Lollipop 5.0.2. Please help me on the procedure.
I've tried apps like towelroot, Kingo, etc. but they don't support Lollipop.

You don't need to root into install a custom ROM.

Follow guide below:
This will void your warranty and wipe your device so make a backup.
CyanogenMod 12 is still a nightly so there are bugs.
Make sure your computer has working fastboot and adb.
Follow these steps:
Step 1: Unlock Bootloader

Enable USB debugging on the device.
Connect the device to the computer through USB.
From a terminal on a computer, type: adb reboot bootloader
Once device booted to fastboot mode, type: fastboot devices
If you don't see your device serial number then fastboot is not working correctly.
If you see no permissions fastboot, try running fastboot as root.
Now type: fastboot oem get_unlock_data
Visit the Motorola Bootloader Unlock website and follow the instructions there to obtain your unlock key.
If the device doesn't automatically reboot, reboot it from the menu. It should now be unlocked.
Since the device resets completely, you will need to re-enable USB debugging on the device to continue.

Step 2: Installing recovery using fastboot

Download TWRP recovery img for your device.
Connect the Moto G 2014 to the computer via USB.
Open a terminal on your PC and type: adb reboot bootloader
Once device is in fastboot mode, type fastboot devices
If you don't see your device serial number then fastboot is not working correctly.
If you see no permissions fastboot, try running fastboot as root.
Install recovery by typing: fastboot flash recovery your_recovery_image.img
Once completed: Boot to recovery: Hold Volume Down & Power simultaneously. On the next screen use Volume Down to scroll to recovery and then use Volume Up to select.

Note: Some ROMs overwrite recovery at boot time so if you do not plan to immediately boot into recovery to install CyanogenMod, please be aware that this may overwrite your custom recovery with the stock one.

Step 3: Installing CyanogenMod from recovery

Download the CyanogenMod package for your device that you'd like to install to your computer.
Optional: Download 3rd party applications packages, like Google Apps which are necessary to download apps from Google Play.
Boot to recovery mode, and connect the phone to your computer through USB.
Hold Volume Down & Power simultaneously. On the next screen use Volume Down to scroll to recovery and then use Volume Up to select
In ClockworkMod Recovery, use the physical volume buttons to move up and down.
Optional (Recommended): Select backup and restore to create a backup of your current ROM.
Select wipe data/factory reset.
Then go to install zip -> install zip from sideload. Now on your PC in the terminal type adb sideload update.zip (Replace update.zip with your cyanogenmod zip)
Optional Install Gapps: go to install zip -> install zip from sideload. Now on your PC in the terminal type adb sideload gapps.zip (Replace gapps.zip with your gapps zip)
Once installation has finished, return to the main menu and select reboot system now. The device will now boot into CyanogenMod.

Note: If you want root access you need to enable it in developer options.

More information: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_titan
Hope my answer helped. (I typed it on my android phone running CyanogenMod 12)

+1. Thank goodness you corrected it. It is readable and useful now. :) However, as I asked @Izzy I'll ask you too: Wouldn't I have to wipe system as well in Step 3.6, or does the ROM has some instructions to wipe the system but not data and cache?

The ROM.zip does automatically wipe /system. That's why you FIRST need to install the ROM and then the GAPPS.

@Firelord if you're going to install a new ROM anyway, wiping /system cannot hurt, can it? :) They have that in several instructions. Whether it's really needed is something else :)

@Izzy It actually hurted my device pretty well :) An year ago I wanted to install Cyanogenmod on my device and was instructed to wipe /system through recovery along with data reset. I did so but the ROM had signature issue so I dropped the idea. I restored my stock ROM backup, and to my surprise my IMEI and Baseband were missing. Nothing helped except the lengthy remedy I wrote in this answer few weeks ago. That's why I asked this silly point to both poster and you.

Ugh! That's harsh. IMEI shouldn't be in /system AFAIK; as that's device-specific, it makes absolutely no sense. Sounds like a Samsung-special (but they use /efs for that), never had that with my Moto nor with my HTC. With the modem/Baseband you might have a point, though I always considered all contents of /system part of the ROM – hence my "cannot hurt" above.

@Izzy It's not Samsung but a Chinese device named Micromax A110q (remember Yureka; same company). There is another device thas has this issue named CUBOT GT-99. At least a million of people uses the former.

Uh-oh, Yu-whatever... OK, I won't ask any further :) You have your point then: Depending on the device // one better checks twice :)

the link to motorola bootloader unlock site doesn't work

authors: สุณิสา สินทับ


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Internal storage fills up
I had a Sony Xperia C with a 16GB memory card. My internal storage kept filling up which made it unable to update or download any apps. The only apps I had were WhatsApp and Instagram. Sent my phone in. Had to pay for repairs, was in for 6 weeks, and got the phone back but still the same errors.
I got a new phone Huawei G6, a brand new 16GB, and a new Google Play Store account. The phone is set for the default storage location to SD card. Moved all app that I could to an SD card. I only have 10 songs and about 100 pictures. I clear cache every day, probably 500 every day. I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.
Please help.

What is the free memory left in your phone out of usable 16gb? and Have a look at the Storage view in your settings..Settings-> Storage would give you how much memory each media is using and shown separtely as applications, video, songs, photos etc..you can analyse which area is occupying most memory

Sounds like the insufficient-memory tag is a hit here (just added it). Please follow up to its tag-wiki for first-aid and useful links. Then return here and either answer your own question (when solved), or [edit] it and point out what you've tried and where you're still stuck. Good luck!

Related: How disk space is used on Android device?

It seems your internal app partition is full. Check it on Settings> Storage> under phone storage what left as available on app section. If it is full (150mb free is not usable) you have 2 options:

You can swap your external SD. You can read full note here: (NB: it works if you have a MTK device, I don't know what if other devices) How to swap phone storage with SD card
Partition of external SD. read it here: How to Partition SD Card and Use Link2SD in any Android Phone with Screenshots

Hope it helps.

I went to the T-Moble store yesterday and asked them about this. They said that with updates and only 8 gigs of memory, my phone will fill up. I will just have to buy a new phone with bigger internal memory because some programs can't be shifted to the SD card. A 16 gig internal memory is good. I wish they would have told me this when I bought the phone.


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How to break Android OS security and root a phone, manually?
Not only that one click applications don't work on my phone, I want to DIY root my phone. Upon googling for quite some time, I couldn't find any updated guide. I am willing to write one myself, but please point me in the right direction. All I get when I google are either noob rooting guides or outdated information. What should I look for? How do I root the linux box?
If it matters, I have a Lenovo P780(Android Version : 4.4.2), and my PC runs both Ubuntu 14.014 and Arch Linux. I have adb and fastboot installed. I didnot manually install any phone drivers. Firstly I tried unlocking the bootloader by rebooting the phone into fastboot mode and trying a sudo fastboot oem unlock. The program doesn't do anything. No output.
Since my phone is MTK based (MT6589), I've tried Framaroot, but it fails with error #9. I remember that in the past when it had stock jellybean, the app worked, but after subsequent updates and upgrade to KitKat, not only did I loose root, but also the exploits might have got patched.

You didn't supplied any information about current android version running on your phone. I think you've updated from 4.2 to something new? Don't tell simple "nob rooting guides or outdated information" if you have updated to 4.4.x. What "one click root" have you tried anyway.

@user3344236 I've updated the question, even though I am more interested in the approach to rooting devices than rooting theparticular device.

To root your phone you dont have to unlock it.
You could just download and flash a pre-rooted ROM for your phone.
Just google the correct zip file for your device (wrong device will brick your phone).
Then set phone to enter fastboot mode, and do:
fastboot devices
fastboot update theprerootrom.zip
fastboot reboot

Or set phone to debug mode, enter recovery, allow ADB, then do:
adb devices
adb sideload theprerootrom.zip
adb reboot

That's blatantly wrong. To install a pre-rooted ROM (which is never a stock) you need a custom recovery, which in order to install requires an unlocked bootloader.

iBug is wrong. Custom recovery purpose is to make recovery easier. Its not mandatory to root a phone which is the question.
It is true that some phone is locked for rooting, but not all.
In order to root a phone you don't have to break Android security.
We're talking in general, not a specific smartphone.

There are STOCK ROOTED ROM, CUSTOM ROOTED ROM, and CUSTOM UNROOTED ROM. Custom ROM requires unlock, while stock ROM doesn't. Most unrooted ROM don't breaks Android security.
Custom recovery purpose is to do recovery, it can be used to write ROM's. ROM can be change without custom recovery: either with stock recovery, or with ROM writing function (fastboot / sideload).