[rewolff]

Having recently switched to a smarter-phone, I'm a bit annoyed at the bad battery life. So I do check on the battery regularly.

With the standard android settings->battery app I can see that the screen is a big battery-drainer. That is unavoidable. I understand that.

Then there are a lot of apps that seem to use a few percent of the total battery power. Fine.

Inbetween these is an app called "HELP" that has now used 29% of my charge, while the screen has used 30%. i.e. I'd get 50% more batterylife if that app would not be there.

Now if I'd been browsing "help" files all day I'd understand that this is the "help" app. However I have not once accessed a helpfile on my phone.

Checking the app from the "app info" menu shows that it is a hefty app. It has all kinds of far-reaching permissions like: "make phone calls, this can cost you money" and "change secure storage".

Besides this, I don't remember seeing this app on the first few days that I had my phone. Maybe I installed a "free" app, that decided to install say a "spyware" app that monitors what I do and hides under the "HELP" name? (and may at one point decide to cost me money by phoning someone paid number).

Google searching for "help app" is polluted with lots of pages with people asking for "help with the xxx app".... So if it is malware, hiding under "help" is a smart move......

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Go to Setting>Apps>All, and select that Help app. Can you uninstall it? If not, then it's a preinstalled system app, and not spyware. Is there a button to Disable it? Since you probably have no use for the Help app, Disabling it would be a good idea, and would prevent it from opening and using battery.

[Gutawer]

The help app is there to help with any problems with your Motorola phone. It is preinstalled and can make phone calls to chat with Motorola agents. No idea why it drains so much battery though.

Posted via Android Central App

[neu smurph]

It used to be called MotoCare (which is the preinstalled System App). It has been updated by the play store with the name charge. I've seen a few reports of it showing up high in battery stats but never experienced it myself. A reboot might help. It does monitor to some degree what you do with your phone and gives pop-ups with advice re charging, turning wifi off when not in use.....blah blah blah.

If you don't need/want it go to Settings/Motorola Privacy and turn both check switches to off. Then go to Settings/Apps navigate to Help, press Uninstall updates, then press Disable.

Here is it's play store entry https://forums.androidcentral.com/e?...token=nVTspgwr

[rewolff]

Thanks guys!
Following the proposed procedure I've disabled it.

Apparenly it was polling what I was doing in a tight loop, using a significant amount of juice. I will have to live without the "helpful" popups from now on....