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How to force apps to stop running in the background on your Android phone

bontime | Jul 28, 2010 |

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Did you know that closing or navigating away from an application does not force the app to stop on an Android phone? For Android devices, when an app closes it stops running but it does not get rid of it from memory or stop its background services. Android is supposed to manage application and remove them from memory when it needs it, but this does not always work as well as it should. When that happens, your device can run low on memory or other resources and behave sluggishly. The result can be so slow that many have resorted to regularly restarting their Android phone to prevent it from getting behaving strangely. But you can also prevent the problem by selectively forcing your background apps to stop on your Android phone. Though it requires quite a few steps, it can be done much faster than restarting the Android phone.

Things You Will Need

Android Device

Step 1

Start by opening the built in "Settings" Android application.

Step 2

The settings application is used to manage many parts of your Android device. In this case, you want to select on the "Applications" option.

Step 3

You will now find yourself at the Application settings screen. Select the "Manage Applications" option.

Step 4

Once in the Manage Applications screen, press on the the Menu button on your device. This will let you access the options for the applications management options.

Step 5

The options will now appear at the bottom of the screen. Select the "Filter" options in the lower right hand corner.

Step 6

The device will now show you a list to filter out the applications. You are interested in the Running applications, so select the option next to the "Running" option.

Step 7

The device will now show all of the applications that are currently in memory. Underneath the names of each application, you will see how much memory the application is currently using. Select the application you want to stop.

Step 8

The application information screen will now display information about the app. On this screen, you will be able to do things like uninstall the application, clear its cache or other special actions for the app. Scroll to the bottom and you will see the "Force stop" button. Pressing this button will stop the application and clear it from your memory. Unfortunately Android will give you no direct feedback that you have been successful. But if move back from the application screen, the app should no longer show up on the running application list.