Google has been continuously trying to improve the Android experience with every version of Android that it pushed out every year. It added some really great multitasking features such as Split Screen in Android Nougat 7.0 and now, Picture in Picture (PiP) in Android Oreo 8.0. Google is enhancing the Android OS with every update trying to improve the end user experience. But, Android being an open source OS, OEMs are free to tune it in however way they want it to. But, personally I love the stock Android experience as it is clutter-free and smooth.
With Android Oreo, Google majorly focussed on improving the performance rather than just loading it with new features. Surely, they added Autofill, PiP and other cool features, but their main focus was to improve the fluidity of the OS and giving the user more control of how they want their phone and apps to behave. They revamped the Settings menu, concatenated the like-settings to one category making it easier to access. Now, you get a notification which tells you how many and which app is running in the background so that you can know if it’s necessary, else you can get rid of that app.
But, one major problem with Android Oreo is, that Google removed the “Restrict Network Access” option in the Data Settings, which was present until Android Nougat. We all know that mostly all the apps run in the background, consuming your CPU, RAM and Data/Wi-Fi as well. This causes more battery drain and if you’re using Mobile Data, then you will not want to lose your Data to background processes of apps. So, we’re going to tell you that how you can solve this problem. It’s easy, requires NO root access, just a little of your time.
Now, there are primarily three ways you can restrict the Network Access to apps installed on your phone:
- Toggling the Non-Optimized apps in Settings
With Android Oreo, Google introduced an enhancement in which a Developer can optimize the app so that it consumes less Battery and Data too. But not all the Developers take the pain to add that code to their apps, so you have to do that manually.
1. Go to Settings on your phone -> Apps and Notifications -> App Info.
2. Open any app for which you want to Restrict Background Activity. For example, We first opened Google Maps. Then Click on Battery. On the next screen, you will see “Battery Optimisation”. If there is no toggle, that means it is already optimised, as shown below.
3. Next, we tried Shareit. When you open the Battery option for this app, you will see a toggle for “Background Activity”. This means that this app is not optimised. Turn this off to restrict this app from running in the background when you’re not using it.
- Restricting Background Data
Until Android Nougat, there was an option to Restrict Background as well as Foreground data. But, in Oreo, there is an option only for Restricting Background Data.
1. Go to Settings -> Network and Internet -> Data Usage.
3. Find the option of “Background Data” and turn it off.
- Data Saver
There is an option of “Data Saver” which helps you restrict the background data for all apps automatically when you’re not using them. This helps in saving battery. But, when this is turned ON, you may not receive WhatsApp messages also because it limits background activity for all the apps. You can add WhatsApp or other similar apps to the “Unrestricted Data Aceess” list to allow them data access even when Data Saver is turned On.
1. Go to Settings -> Network and Internet -> Data Usage -> Data Saver.
2. Turn On the “Data Saver” option to enable this feature. You can add IM apps like WhatsApp in “Unrestricted Data Access” to allow them Data access when Battery Saver is turned on so that you continue to receive messages and notifications.
- Third Party Apps
There are third party apps which can limit the Data Usage and even Wi-Fi usage for each and every app installed on your device. If you have root access, then you will have a lot more control and will save a good amount of battery. But, if you don’t have root access, then you can do this by some third party apps. But these apps will use a VPN to restrict the data access.
Watch This Video to Block Data Usage for Any App on Xiaomi Mi A1 Running Android 8 Oreo:
One such app is NetGuard. It works without root access by creating a VPN. I’ve been using this app since a few days now, and it works pretty well. Doesn’t consume a lot of battery, no peeking notifications and low in size. You can check out this app here. If you want more information about this ad, then you can check out this video on our YouTube channel.
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