Restrict Google Play Services connections when enabling Wifi / mobile data

sintox548

How can I prevent Google Play Services from making connections e.g. to mtalk.google.com every time I leave airplane mode and enable wifi / mobile data?

I only want to use Google Play Services just for the Google Play Store to install apps / updates on my main user profile.
I tried to remove the Network permission from Google Play Services, however, the Google Play Store will then no longer work (just like the docs on the Grapheneos.org website describe).
Ideally, Google Play Services would only try to connect to the internet when I check for updates in Google Play Store.

[deleted]

sintox548 in battery usage use restricted mode. That way it will only work in the foreground. You can always close it from Recents after the use for good measure. I don't use it so it doesn't bother me. Edit: it is not recommended to restrict background activity of "Google Play Services", what I meant was in regards to Play Store app.

dazinism

sintox548
If you long press on an apps icon and select to goto the App Info ⓘ page you can use 'Force Stop' and then it cant run unless you or another app asks it to do something.

In the case of Play Services many apps are likely to ask it to do things so you would need to Disable it instead. You'll have to go back to Enable it before it can run again.

Its somewhat debatable as to the benefits of treating Play Services in this way without doing similar with Play Store.

sintox548

Thank you for the responses!

As dazinism pointed out, just closing/swiping away Google Play Store from the Recent apps screen after checking for updates will not solve my issue since Google Play Services still tries to make connections to the internet (probably get "revived" from other installed apps calling them).

After some more thinking about the situation, my best way forward would be to wait until the "Install available apps" feature is integrated again to be used for the owner profile (it was removed again after being briefly included for some GrapheneOS releases).
This would allow me to have Google Play Store in a secondary user profile to install apps/ check for updates and transfer these apps to my main profile without having to install Google Play Services/Store in my main owner profile.

In the meantime I will continue with my current setup and live with Google Play services connections.

dazinism

sintox548
Im not sure the functionality to quickly install apps from secondary profiles onto other user profiles will come back any time soon.

Its possible to do the same thing now though. You can use an apk extractor app , like kanade, to get the apk and then install that on another profile.

Alternatively you can download the apk from elsewhere and check the package name ( something like com.someapp.company listed at the bottom of the Apps Info page under Settings > Apps) and/or apk signature fingerprint match what you already have. Then it will get updated when you update it in the secondary user.