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I am talking about the app that shows up as "Google Search" in the Battery statistics.

My Phone is a Nexus 4 on KitKat.

This app draws a lot of battery, up to 50% in idle standby. It also has a "Keep awake" value of usually at least several hours.

Possibly related, I noticed that my phone is ALWAYS awake according to the battery stats. One charge merely lasts 8 hours.

I have switched off Location Recognition and I have deactivated the Hotword Detection ("Ok Google") in the Settings for the google search bar on my home screen.

Does anyone experience the same problem and are there any suggestions for a solution?

EDIT: Disabling the search app solves the always awake issue and improves battery life. Of course this is not a real fix.

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  • Have you tried deleting cache (and data, if cache alone doesn't help) from the app? Maybe something got messed up there.
    – Izzy ♦
    Dec 14, 2013 at 19:12
  • I'll do that later and report back.
    – Konstantin Schubert
    Dec 15, 2013 at 16:25
  • 2
    I've got the same issue on my Nexus 5. i.imgur.com/DC9a8dj.png i.imgur.com/yYNjhV0.png
    – Roman
    Dec 19, 2013 at 23:09
  • Cache and data cleaning didn't help.
    – Roman
    Dec 20, 2013 at 22:15

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This seems like a fix:

The solution is to take away 2 permissions: the Google search app permissions to keep the device awake, and access location. This gets rid of the wakelocks, and still appears to keep google now etc. functional. You can do this using App Ops from the play store (needs root), or if you are on custom ROMs, through "App Privacy" menu setting. Additionally you could also turn off location history and reporting, to be on the safe side. Google Now still works, but now without the wakelocks!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1zxri4/google_play_services_battery_drain_the_real/

On my device (running CyanogenMod), I went to Settings → Privacy → Privacy Guard → Preferences → make sure Show built-in apps is checked → scroll down and long press Google Search → Keep awake → Denied

For those not running a custom ROM, unfortunately there seem to be a million App Ops apps in the Play Store, but this one looks legit: App Ops by Lars Team

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  • App Ops do not work anymore in KitKat 4.4.2
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Sep 24, 2014 at 14:28
  • @Mindwin The particular app I linked does work in Android 4.4.2+, but it requires root in order to do so.
    – bmaupin
    Sep 24, 2014 at 16:53
  • I think I missed that, good to know. It is a mess because the app name is the same name as the API feature that google took down, and why can't apps write to SD card anymore, dammit google, stop taking down stuff and start to police your app shop more. And now I digressed by a mile.[
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Sep 24, 2014 at 18:10
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S A M E. My device is Nexus 7 running Android 4.4.2 though.

I found someone wrote this on the web.

"The issue with this draining your battery is that you have location turned off, if you turn it on and leave it on you will not get the battery drain. With it off Google search is constantly looking for the location and cannot find it which is what is draining your battery. Had this issue and once I turned on location and left it on, no more drain. Hope this helps!"

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  • Sounds unlikely. If location is turned off Google Search won't look for the location.
    – user5506
    Jan 2, 2014 at 9:02

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