User:JodyBruchonFan/Google software sucks

One would expect Google to be a company of world class developers. While they create good software in some categories, VP9 and AV1 and Google Earth being examples, they sometimes don't implement basic features one would expect some other categories of software to have. This page collects various failures and bad decisions by Google's "world class developers". Everyone is welcome to contribute.

Android OS

Built-in file manager

It baffles me how Google manages to create a sophisticated chat bot like Gemini while failing to build a proper file manager.

Both "Files by Google" and Android's built-in file manager (DocumentsUI) lack basic features one would expect from a file manager. They lack features that ES File Explorer already had in the early 2010s, in its golden days before becoming adware and when Android was friendly to third-party file managers.

For example, there is no scrollbar. On DocumentsUI, you can not see the total size and recursive file/folder count of one or more selected directories. You can not limit searching to one specific folder but you have to search the entire storage. There are no search filters like date range. The search feature only returns up to 24 results, an arbitrary limit. In list view, the last modified time and number of items within a folder are not shown. The detail view only shows the last modified time in minutes, not seconds, and does not show the exact file size in bytes. You can not jump from a search result to its parent directory. You can not rename or move files directly from the "recent files" list, only copy them. It does not remember your sorting preference. You can not select all items inbetween two items (like shift+click does on desktop and ES File Explorer does with a dedicated button).

There is no "open with" feature that lets you manually pick an application. There is no address bar that would let you enter or paste a file path. It doesn't even make use of Android's built-in recycle bin feature. Tapping on "More information" unselects the selected item. Going back to the parent directory will open the top of the list, not the last scroll position. The ZIP file creator does not memorize the date and time of directories, only files, and refuses to generate archives from Android/data and Android/obb. And you can't copy or move files to these two directories, only from them.

It doesn't even preserve the date and time attribute of copied files, something Windows had in the 1990s and Windows Mobile 6, released in 2009, had too.

Most importantly, after tapping on "copy" or "move", it doesn't stay in the current directory, but opens the Download folder instead. This means, if you wish to move items to a subdirectory of the currently viewed directory, you first have to manually navigate all the way back to the directory you were in before tapping on "copy" or "move". This is something even Windows 95 did better.

Earlier versions even had a bug where cancelling a file move operation would cause source files to be irrecoverably deleted without having been moved to the destination.

But hey, at least they implemented Google Drive integration. To their credit, they implemented the ability to browse and extract selected or all files from ZIP and even TAR and 7z archives, create ZIP files, a built-in EXIF viewer, the ability to open multiple instances, selection by tapping the file icon (faster than holding), a large grid view suitable for image seeking, and the file transfer progress indicator is displayed as a notification, which is better than a pop-up that blocks interacting with the file manager, like in Samsung's file manager.

Android text editor

Let's have a look at Android's text editor. Oh wait... Android doesn't have one!

Since the dawn of personal computers, a text editor was a basic part of the "scope of delivery" of operating systems. Something you'd simply expect to be... there. Even Windows 1.0, even MS-DOS had a pre-installed text file editor. But Android? Nope.

Now, you'd say "can't you get a text editor from the Play Store"? Well, the Play Store is a mine field of adware. Text editors from there are usually filled with advertisements that require piracy payment to remove, or risk breaking with the next Android update because Google makes changes to file access once again that "make life more difficult" for third-party apps because Google considers all third-party apps untrustworthy.

If Google considers third-party apps untrustworthy by default, how come they haven't bothered making something as simple as a text editor for Android?

Text selection tools

Text selection on Android has not improved much since the early 2010s.

The text selection tools on Android (cut, copy, paste, ...) are fairly limited. Samsung added an "undo" button to their text selection menu in recent years before 2026 only, mimicking Ctrl+Z that had existed for decades on desktop and laptop computers.

There is also no way to select a large block of text like one would do on a desktop/laptop computer by clicking somewhere in a text to place the cursor somewhere, then scrolling to a different part of the text, then holding shift, and then clicking a different part of the text, resulting in selecting all text between those two positions. The closest thing on Android is "drag-to-select", which becomes tedious on large blocks of text due to having to wait for the scrolling to finish.

Android has nothing comparable to holding Shift and then pressing the arrow keys to select letters (left and right) or lines (up and down), holding Ctrl and Shift and pressing the arrow keys to select words, or triple-clicking to select a paragraph, or holding shift and pressing "page up" or "page down" to select one screen size of text, holding shift and pressing Home or End to select all text from the cursor position to the beginning or end of the line respectively, and doing the same with Ctrl to select all text from the cursor position to the beginning or end of the page or text area.

The stock Android text selection menu has no icons. The text selection menu on TouchWiz, Samsung's customized Android distribution before 2017, actually had icons (screenshot), but Samsung unfortunately threw that away for Google's iconless text selection menu.

Screenshot blocking

The thing that supposedly sets Android apart from iOS is user choice and freedom, yet Google decided that device owners are at the mercy of app developers to let them take screenshots and screen recordings. This is known as screenshot blocking or screen capture blocking, and can only be overridden with an unlocked bootloader and root access, which has complications of its own.

While this was originally intended to prevent banking app content from being captured or broadcast to external screens (miracast, MHL), there is nothing preventing it from being used outside of its originally intended scope. Consequently, it was only a matter of time before app developers realized they could use it arbitrarily.

For this reason, Google should have provided a built-in option that lets the device owner override screen capture blocks at their own responsibility. An app deciding whether you are allowed to take screenshots on your device is comparable to a guest in your home telling you how to behave.

Power management

Battery saving is less of a concern while charging, so the user might want to set a longer timeout until the device goes into stand-by mode automatically. Unfortunately, Android has no option to set a different screen timeout based on an external charger being connected.

The closest thing is the "Stay awake" option in the "Developer options", which keeps the screen on indefinitely if a charger is connected, but this might not be what the user wants. The user might opt for 30 seconds while not charging, and 2 minutes while charging.

Windows had such a feature since at least Vista (Control Panel > Power Options > Edit Plan Settings).

As of 2026, all known smartphone vendors have implemented a battery charge limiting option, which reduces battery weardown by limiting charging to 80 or 85 percents, which is made necessary by batteries not being replaceable, at least not without difficulties. Another option that would help extending the battery life expectancy would be limiting fast charging to 50%, then charging slow and gently to 80%. Fast charging is most urgently needed at low battery percentages, and also generates less heat at lower percentages.

Also, the user should be able to manually pick a charging limit, such as 70% to extend the battery life expectancy even more, or 90% to make more use of the available capacity while still extending the life noticeably compared to a full 100% charge. But given that Google Nexus smartphones were among the earliest smartphones to have non-replaceable batteries (see Nexus 4, Nexus 5), this is something Google probably won't care about.

Given how much smartphone batteries have grown during the past years, 70% are usually enough to get through the day. Even some entry-level smartphones like the lower Galaxy A series have a solid 5000 mAh. This is not 2017, where Samsung released a flagship phablet with a 3300 mAh embarrassment.

Google Messages (SMS, MMS, RCS app)

No option to export messages, making it almost impossible to create local backups without root access.

The third-party app "SMS Backup+" sadly forces the user to go through the middleman GMail rather than doing the sensible thing, just dumping a file in the device storage.

There is no option to always show the number of remaining characters. The number of remaining characters is only shown if ten or less characters are left.

Dialer (telephone) and contacts app

Of course, no built-in exporting to a file. Not surprising at this point.

GBoard (Google Keyboard)

There is no option to turn off the one-hour clipboard time limit, which automatically deletes clipboard items older than one hour, even after users have asked for it.

The clipboard is not intended for long-term storage of course, but that's not an excuse for not giving the user the choice. Why not two hours? Why not one day? Why not indefinitely until a certain number of items is exceeded? Let the user decide.

In comparison, Samsung's and Xiaomi's keyboard applications (before Xiaomi ditched their native keyboard app in favour of GBoard) have no fixed time limit and delete the oldest unpinned clipboard item if a number of items is exceeded.

It should also be noted that the clipboard history is stored internally by the keyboard app and not accessible to any other app, so the argument that it would expose sensitive information to other apps without the knowledge of the user is not true.

If special character shortcuts are enabled, there is a shortcut for the backslash (\), but surprisingly not for the forward slash (/), a much more commonly used key.

You can't change the delay until holding the backspace key will erase multiple characters, and how fast they are cleared (how many characters per second). A delay too long becomes a nuisance over time.

There are no virtual "Home", "End", "Page up", or "Page down" buttons.

Additionally, it lacks reverse backspacing. Samsung's keyboard allows reverse backspacing using Shift+Backspace. This is like the "delete" key on desktop computers.

File chooser

The Android file chooser (or file picker) and file saver does not accept file paths, neither relative paths from the currently viewed directory, nor absolute paths. So, if you have a file path in your clipboard, you can not paste it to instantly select a file or save a file to this path. You can also not add bookmarks to frequently visited locations, which Windows and Linux file pickers had for decades.

To its credit, it had grid view since at least Android 6, which the Linux Gtk file picker didn't have until the end of 2022, and Windows had since the 1990s.

MTP (Media Transfer Protocol)

Until roughly the mid-2010s, there was a bug where files would still display with their previous name or at the previous location after being moved or renamed on the device itself, but it was fixed at some point.

Long folder listings load slowly, though this seems to be an inherent issue with the MTP protocol, not Android.

There is no "read-only" option which would only provide read access to the MTP client (desktop computer or laptop), which would guard against accidentally making changes when only reading data is desired. The addition of such an option seems long overdue, when read-only mounting has been a thing on Linux for decades.

In addition, to enable MTP file access, the user has to open the notification menu and scroll to its bottom (which, since Android 5, closes if you accidentally overscroll) and tap on a notification. This is a tedious process.

Normally, MTP file access is turned off immediately when the phone is disconnected from the external computer, and connecting it again will only charge the phone unless MTP is manually activated by the user again.. While the reason for this is obvious, there needs to be an option to keep MTP on for a limited time after disconnecting, such as one to five minutes, which would add comfort in safe environments such as home.

For example, when disconnecting the phone and connecting it to a different computer, or a split-second USB disconnection caused by moving the device around, which normally forces the user to go through the tedious process of turning MTP back on each and every time. An option to keep MTP on temporarily would save the user from this discomfort.

Notification menu

The notification menu of Android 5 Lollipop received an overhaul that added "fancy" animations and gestures at the expense of usability and loading speed.

Overscrolling the bottom of the notification menu closes the notification menu. This is a poor design decision for the same reason pull-to-refresh has no place in a web browser, just in the opposite direction: It triggers a potentially unintended action when the user only intends to scroll.

The user might intend to scroll to the bottom of the notification menu, or swipe up to see if there are more notifications, not to close the notification menu. Once the notification menu is closed, the user has to start over scrolling. Of course, there is no scroll bar.

In Samsung TouchWiz before Android 5, opening the notification menu would bring up the last scroll position, not the top.

Accessibility

Gesture overuse

Gestures are implemented in places where virtual buttons had formerly been. For example, on home screens, the button to show all installed apps was replaced with a swipe-up gesture. The bottom navigation buttons were replaced with gestures similar to those introduced on the iPhone X in 2017, though there is an option to reveal buttons again. Most egregiously, if you don't use biometric unlocking, you can not unlock your phone without doing that swipe gesture to reveal the keypad.

Users who do not wish to use biometric unlocking, or have a device that doesn't support it, need to use knowledge-based authentication (PIN, password, pattern). However, before the keypad is shown, the user has to perform a swipe gesture ("swipe to unlock"). Not only is it a nuisance to have to do this every single time, but it adds no protection. It is just an extra hoop the user has to jump through to unlock their phone. Every single time.

If we assume that the average user unlocks their smartphone roughly 100 times in a day (Android Authority poll), that's 100 additional swipes, spread throughout the day. This seemingly small step is magnified over many repetitions.

This extraneous step seems to be a part of mobile user interfaces that is unquestionedly taken for granted, something that just "has to be this way". But it's not. It would be better for the user to have the option to replace it with a single tap to reveal the keypad, or immediately show the keypad below the notifications without a step inbetween, like how it is on Samsung phones prior to the Galaxy S7, and the S6 prior to the Android 6 Marshmallow update.

The fact that touch screens support gestures doesn't mean they have to be put everywhere. It seems this overuse of gestures is an "afterglow" of the early day of touch screens, where touch gestures were seen as "innovative", "fancy", the "new thing" that sets new phones apart from old button-only phones, "the future", and more "creative" than a simple button. (Pull-to-refresh was probably implemented for similar reasons, to try to "extract more use" of the touch screen, which backfired spectacularly.)

Fact is, tapping on a virtual button takes less effort than swiping. And with the tall aspect ratio screens that smartphones have nowadays, the screen space taken by a few virtual buttons is trivial compared to their added comfort benefit.

Scrolling

Even scrolling itself could be made more comfortable by giving the user virtual "page up" and "page down" buttons at the bottom of the screen. While reading, this would replace several swipes to scroll one screen height with a simple tap on a "page down" button.

At least, there should be a "scrolling speed multiplier" option which lets the user scroll faster than the finger moves on screen. For example, a scrolling speed factor of two would mean the user scrolls through twice the content with the same swiping distance, with the added benefit that there is no text that is covered by their finger for the duration of the swipe.

Google Calendar

Lacks a "jump to date" feature which would let you enter the numerical date.

This is something Samsung had in the early 2010s (but curiously removed with the S6), and Nokia had even in the 1990s, for example on the Nokia 7111.

If you want to check what day of the week a specific date was, you have to manually scroll to it.

Google Chrome

Mandatory pull-to-refresh, data lock-in, lack of customization, and more. See Everything wrong with Chrome.

Google Docs

Google Docs will only let you save documents locally if the creator allows it. This is moralized nonsense. If someone makes something public, they should expect that others are able to save it.

YouTube

The YouTube website and mobile application provide no way to download videos to a local file that is accessible outside the YouTube website or app. Unlike most other things on this list, this has been done on purpose, not as a result of negligence, see YouTube § Digital Rights Management.

There is no numerical "jump to time feature" like the one the desktop edition of VLC Media Player has had for decades. The mobile edition of VLC Media Player has it too.

The mobile app has mandatory updates that lock the user out of the app until they install the update, which might not be possible on an older device. This prevents the user from accessing certain data such as their settings and search history, which are only stored locally with data lock-in if the app is used without a Google account.

If an update is required for video playback, a required update should at worst only disable video playback, not the entire app and lock the user out of their in-app data.