[G 2014 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Crepusculr:
This is what I strongly recommend doing. I tried everything that could be tried without rooting, as I think unlocking the bootloader and using customized software doesn't give you the reliability of the Moto apps, and it doesn't provide an acceptable level of security. If you have an unlocked bootloader and a custom recovery your passcode is useless as it can be bypassed in minutes. You don't want that.

* The #1 culprit is accessibility services. Even if one single thing is enabled in accessibility, Android is going to slow down hard. Android's accessibility settings allow apps to gain special permission, and stuff like that makes it possible for Braille back or any medical device to be able to get deeply tied into the OS. When an App starts an accessibility service, it gains special services and it becomes tangled to the OS so deeply that Android will start logging every little thing you do. That's great if you have special needs and you need something like that to use your phone, but if it's just some cool App, it's really not worth it.

Head over to settings, accessibility and make sure everything is toggled off. On top, you'll see a list of Apps. Get inside all of these sections and turn the toggles off.

* Cut down on Apps. The more you install, the worse it gets. Very simple. Strive to install Apps that are small in size and that don't use much RAM. You can see what's running in the background in developer settings (Google how to enable those) > running services. If you see any App running that shouldn't be and it's not essential, it must go. Anything you haven't used in the past 60 days must go. Whenever you find you have an App you never open, even if it's super small, just get it out of the system. Not only is it good for your phone, but it's also good for your own sanity and balance! Do some research. You'll find that the excellent suite of Google's preloaded Apps is already enough for pretty much everything. Many of the features are pretty much hidden or not advertised, but they're there. Your phone was designed to be usable from the ground - up, only install apps for things that you can't do natively i.e. chatting using WhatsApp, social media, Spotify, an RSS reader, Google Keep, nutrition tracking apps, Uber/Lyft and so on and so forth.

* See which of your Apps have web versions. Uninstall the App, and create a shortcut for the web version in Google Chrome.

* Free up storage. Strive to keep as much free storage as possible. Get a file explorer that's not ES and delete folders from apps you no longer use. Dig through WhatsApp > Databases and delete all the outdated ones. Get rid of all the unwanted, old photos, videos and voice notes left behind by messaging clients. Go through that mess your Downloads folder it and simply get rid of things you no longer need. Get rid of your screenshots too. Save the important ones in another album.

* Reboot on a regular basis. I'd say, turn your phone off and back on every 2 - 3 days.

* Use Google Photos's "Free up storage" to get rid of local copies of pics and videos that already safe and sound on your Google Photos account.

* Don't use Greenify in this day and age, especially if you're not rooted. It uses accessibility and, as you might expect by now, right, it's counter - productive. Your phone already does a good job at freezing Apps you don't use after a long period of time starting Android 6.0

* If an App keeps running in the background, consuming too much RAM and misbehaving, force close it. Get it from the App drawer, drag it to "App Info" and go "Force Close" on it. Android will get the hint and it won't let it start back again unless you so choose.

* Wipe the cache partition. It does not require root and there is a very nice guide on the instruction manual online. It doesn't delete any personal data and it works wonders.

* To wipe cache, head on over to settings > storage > internal storage > Cached data. Tap it and tap OK.

* Chrome caches a lot. Get into its app info, then storage, then clean data. Tap the first button: Chrome will delete cache from websites it deems unimportant, so you'll still have all the cache, cookies, history and login info from your favourite websites.

* If you have any App that promises to make your phone faster or free up storage or prolong the endurance of your battery such as Clean Master, DU Battery Booster, HTC Boost + etc etc get rid of that too. They're counter - productive and overall bad. I could sit there for hours giving you reasons why they are useless. The same goes to antivirus software.

* If you use Facebook, either uninstall it and use it on Google Chrome (it pushes notifications too!) or switch to Facebook Lite or Swipe. Also delete Messenger, as the web version and the external clients deal with that too. Again, if you prefer, use Messenger Lite instead. Or just don't use it on your phone at all and gain a lot of free time.

* Consider giving up on Snapchat as long as you have this phone. It's just too much. I got rid of it and I'll hop back on on my next device!

* If you use any cloud service other than Drive, buy Solid Explorer, add the cloud service and delete its proprietary App. Solid will be more than enough to run it.

* You don't have to keep Motorola and Google apps you don't need, such as Google Plus, the almost dead Hangouts or the discontinued Assist. Simply drag and drop them to "App Info", and then "Disable" them. Actually, do it. These apps are super demanding in terms of storage and stuff. As soon as you turn your phone on they don't make an impact on your storage, but as soon as they get updated the original App gets frozen and a duplicate gets installed in the user memory. That is, YOUR storage. Disabling Apps will get rid of the double copy and freeze the one that's in the system partition, storage you can't use anyway. Say: Google Play Books keeps running and it uses 200+MB, but you're a Kindle user like me and you couldn't care less about Google's own objectively inferior e-reading competing service. Simply disable Play Books and boom, your phone's a little faster and you've claimed yourself well over 200MB!

* The best security is common sense. Only install apps from the Play Store and disable unknown sources in security. Really, it has everything you need and more.

* Nova Launcher. The preinstalled launcher is great and lightweight enough, but now that it's on the way out I notice it slowing down and randomly being unreliable and not showing anything on it. Nova is graphically the exact same, except it's a lot faster and more optimized. Caveat: you'll need to open the Google App to access the Now feed.

* Delete all the data out of Play Music and set it to "Downloaded only" to prevent it from getting so huge again. It apparently doesn't always save to the SD card, and we can't do that on an 8GB phone.

* Disable the HP Printing service if you don't have an HP Printer.