Don’t Let This Google Messages Error Drain Your Android Battery
If you’re using Google Messages on Android, it can silently eat up your phone’s battery . While Google has fixed the issue, the fix may not install on your device for some time. Until then, there are steps you can take to keep the app from wasting unnecessary battery power.
How Google Messages Drains Your Battery
Google Messages, like many chat apps, has a shortcut to quickly take a photo or video in a message thread to send. This feature allows you to take a photo from a small live feed for faster access, or you can click on the live feed to expand it and get a better view of what you’re filming.
But while this feature is certainly handy, it does increase your Android’s battery life due to a bug. Usually, once you stop using this feature, Google Messages stops accessing your camera; however, this bug keeps the camera active in Google Messages without any feedback from the app itself. However, the affected users knew what the bug was, as Android 12 is superior to any app that uses the camera.
Keeping your camera open for long periods of time has a huge impact on your battery, as anyone who has accidentally activated a camera in their pocket can attest. This, combined with the security implications of an app using the camera without your knowledge, let alone the Google app, makes this bug one of the problems.
It seems that this error is also not new. A February 15th Reddit thread discusses the issue, meaning that Google Messages could be draining users’ batteries for months by this point.
How to stop Google Messages error from running out of battery
Thankfully, Google is now releasing a patch to fix the bug. Google PR manager Scott Westover confirmed to The Verge that the company has fixed the issue and is releasing a patch for users. However, there is no current time frame for this implementation, so until a fix arrives on your phone, you may need to take a step or two to prevent the bug from draining your battery.
If you want to passively resolve the issue, be sure to close Google Messages in the Recent view every time Android tells you that an app is using your camera. As a more permanent solution until the fix is installed on your device, you can remove Google Messages permissions to use your camera. This only works well if you never use the camera feature in the app. You’ll find this option in your Google Messages settings under Permission > Camera > Don’t Allow .
[ 9to5Google ]