does anyone know how to clear the recent apps so there is not a long list? is there anyone that I could shorten it to only show my last 3 apps?
thanks again
Freak
tab 10.1
If you hold your Power button down a while, a list of options will come up. Select Power Off. This will power down your tablet. When you restart it the list will be cleared.
What type of things do you have on your recent list "sexfreak"?
there are things there that are adult oriented, I also dont like how it shows the last picture taken. I was hoping for something a little more slick then powering it off and on, like maybe shortening the list that it would display, or a "app" or link that would clear it out.
sexfreak said:
does anyone know how to clear the recent apps so there is not a long list? is there anyone that I could shorten it to only show my last 3 apps?
thanks again
Freak
tab 10.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just use one of the Task Manager apps then kill all the processes.
i use advance task killer, it free's the memory up but still leaves the "history " should I use a different task killer?
Developers can mark their apps to not show in recent apps list, but the list itself is only modifiable by android OS. So I think there is no a task killer/manager which can help you.
You can reboot tab or open as many app as needed to hide your problematic app from the lsit
So far Task manager will not clear your recent app list. Only solution I have found is rebooting the device.
Does anyone know where the data is stored? Would it be possible to navigate to the location of the file and clear it that way?
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App
has anyone noticed that after you kill an app that it will start on its own? gmail, books, clock, browser, craigslist, google voice and others will start up after I "kill" them
Related
Ok I have looked around and have not found the answer. SO here Goes
In windows if you want to keep the memory that you have clear of background applications, you can run system configuration and just remove the check-mark for those items you dont want to auto start.
I have Advanced Task Killer installed and will set it up to auto kill and will manual kill apps as well. Instead of consistently looking at ATK to shut down apps, is there a way to just keep all the apps you not using nor have ever started from suddenly being there and sucking the life out of your battery?
Having applications "running" in the background (i.e., still in memory but in a suspended state) does NOT negatively affect your battery life. These applications are actually just remaining in memory because that memory does not need to be used by anything else at the moment. If an active application gets to a point where it needs more memory, Android will automatically close applications that are in a suspended state (i.e., not actively being used) to make room.
In other words, using an app killer is NOT necessary and I definitely recommend NOT using one. By closing the application repeatedly, you are just causing the application to take a longer amount of time to start up next time you use it. You're making your Android experience worse by using one, not better.
There is one caveat to this, and that is when you have an application installed that doesn't play nicely -- i.e., even when you stop using that application, it will continue to use up CPU cycles (never go into a suspended state). This is actually pretty rare unless you are installing really poorly written programs, but it can happen to some popular apps too (usually the result of a bug). In this case, you should either uninstall that application or use an app killer to only kill that one app.
I've heard both sides of this argument, and don't know who to believe. I didn't think I needed a Task Killer, but then I saw it repeatedly on "top 10 apps for Android" and "must have Android apps" lists from respected sites like cnet... who to believe?!
Cnet ≠ respected
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
drumist said:
Having applications "running" in the background (i.e., still in memory but in a suspended state) does NOT negatively affect your battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I need to confirm this. Anyone? I dont care about memory because I bet Android excels at that, and at any rate, memory is there to be used, not to keep it empty.
But I come from a Symbian smartphone and "minimized" applications DO uses battery. Maybe little, but noticeable.
Anyone can confirm that background apps consume negligible battery juice?
Additionally, is there a nice task changer? Like windows Alt+Tab. I feel my Android like an iPhone, that I need to press the home button to move to another already opened app and that's just plain stupid. So far I'm using Multitasking Lite, but it can get sluggish once there are too many apps opened. Any suggestion would be warmly welcomed.
"Running" background apps DO NOT consume battery life unless they're actively syncing. If it's just in the memory saving the state of the app then that is fine.
As far as using a task killer, if you are manually killing apps and they keep starting back up then that is a bad thing for your battery. The app uses cpu cycles everytime it starts up again and syncs data. You can use a task killer to close apps that opened on startup or when you're done with them. If they stay closed until you choose to open them again then you're saving memory, but nothing to do with battery life.
ocswing said:
"Running" background apps DO NOT consume battery life unless they're actively syncing. If it's just in the memory saving the state of the app then that is fine
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for confirming ;]
Darius_bd said:
Additionally, is there a nice task changer? Like windows Alt+Tab. I feel my Android like an iPhone, that I need to press the home button to move to another already opened app and that's just plain stupid. So far I'm using Multitasking Lite, but it can get sluggish once there are too many apps opened. Any suggestion would be warmly welcomed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously you can switch over to some apps by pulling down the notification menu and selecting the appropriate app. That only works on apps that put themselves in the notification menu though (multimedia apps and things like Google Nav usually do this).
Otherwise, you can press and hold the home button to bring up the list of 8 most recently opened apps without exiting the active app. This works but like I said, it's the 8 most recent apps, so it will list apps that aren't necessarily still running anymore. It's more of a shortcut to having to go search in your apps menu or home screens to find a recent app than a way to see what is currently running.
drumist said:
Otherwise, you can press and hold the home button to bring up the list of 8 most recently opened apps without exiting the active app. This works but like I said, it's the 8 most recent apps, so it will list apps that aren't necessarily still running anymore. It's more of a shortcut to having to go search in your apps menu or home screens to find a recent app than a way to see what is currently running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What can I say, I hate pressing the home key to hunt for the icon that opens the app I already opened more than 6 other apps ago ;] Guess I'll stick to Multitasking Lite for the time being. Thanks!
Hi, so a long press on 'home' brings the last 6 apps used. It's so basic it's sad. Is there a way to replace this with a better task switcher? Yes I know how Android manages RAM. I do not want a task killer, but a task switcher that replaces the existing one.
Does that exist? Thank you!
Tried searching the Market?
Task Manager ?
Ok obviously this is frustrating, I think my question has merit and I get the rolling eyes smileys.
Yes I have searched the market. From the ones I tried (must have tried 5 or 6 of them) *not one* of these apps replaces the 'hold home for 2 seconds' behaviour. Not one.
Further more, a lot of them *do not work* on the SGS2. Perfect task switcher fails to render the screenshots for example, other freeze, other are plain broken - displaying all running processes including 'android system'.
What I'm looking for is something that replaces the 2 sec long press and display the most recent used apps.
Maybe try quickdesk.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
LauncherPro has such a feature. You can set one of the dock buttons to "recent apps" and it'll fill your entire screen with your recent apps, not just 6.
I have ICS 4.0.3. and I want to know how to close App?
How do you know for sure this App is closed, without having to go in Settings and close it there every single time manually.
You don't.
Android handles management of apps and will close them when it needs too. It will also pre-launch apps so they are ready to use. So no need to worry about closing them. Just go back to the home screen or whatever and don't worry about it.
If something is misbehaving you can go into your Settings > Apps find you app and hit Force Close, but that should not need to be done often. If you do then find a different app.
Even if you do this to "close apps" Android will probably just relaunch them in a few minutes anyway. You just don't need to "close" apps. That is a traditional PC convention and does not translate to Android.
nixtip said:
I have ICS 4.0.3. and I want to know how to close App?
How do you know for sure this App is closed, without having to go in Settings and close it there every single time manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click on recent app tab, find the app that you wish to close, swipe left or right to close it. Love this feature so much.
Open the recent apps button at the bottom (3rd from left and looks like 2 boxes) and then swipe the app you want closed to the left or right.
Edit: Crap. Lol someone beat me to it
andyxover said:
Click on recent app tab, find the app that you wish to close, swipe left or right to close it. Love this feature so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty sure that is just a list of apps you opened recently. Swiping them off just removes them from the list, and doesn't stop the application from running. You can test this by swiping it off then going into your Settings > Apps. For me, the app is still running even when swiped from the list. Also things stay there even when an App has actually been forced close.
UmbraeSoulsbane said:
Pretty sure that is just a list of apps you opened recently. Swiping them off just removes them from the list, and doesn't stop the application from running. You can test this by swiping it off then going into your Settings > Apps. For me, the app is still running even when swiped from the list. Also things stay there even when an App has actually been forced close.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct this doesn't close the app but just gets rid of it in the list of recent apps.
UmbraeSoulsbane said:
Swiping them off just removes them from the list, and doesn't stop the application from running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know this! Thats good to know. I won't bother doing this after hit the home button then!
wgr73 said:
I didn't know this! Thats good to know. I won't bother doing this after hit the home button then!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL. Yeah, when I first saw this I was kinda confused by it. I know how Android manages memory and apps, so I didn't understand what it was for: especially with prominent placement on the System Bar. I guess they just felt they needed something for people used to closing apps.
This would be great for people that run 3 or 4 apps all the time since they would not need to have them on the Home screen or go to the App Drawer.
Android does a good job managing memory, so you should only need to close apps that are having problems. This can be a hard transition from the Windows world.
wgr73 said:
I didn't know this! Thats good to know. I won't bother doing this after hit the home button then!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now this isn't necessarily true.
I played w/ this a bit and put the Task Manager widget on the home screen. On some apps, if you remove them from the recent apps list, the task disappears from the Task Manager maybe 5-10 seconds later. Now while I realize that not all running apps necessarily show up on the Task Manager, I've noticed that if an app/process is ended on the Task Manager, it is no longer listed under running apps in the settings.
And when you use the Task Manager to close certain apps, they'll still show up in the Recent Apps list but instead of showing a proper image of app activity, it'll be just a blank black square. When you tap that square, it just opens the app as new.
I used the app called system to verify and swiping does close them....awsome.
One of my favorite features of ics
Modded by MBOK
I just discovered that you can get rid of apps from the recent apps menu (the square button next to the home button) by swiping them to the side. I don't know why this makes me so retardedly happy, but I am sure that SOMEONE else out there will also appreciate this tidbit of information.
Anyone else have any nuggets of joy to share?
I liked that trick also when I first found out. Another thing too is that you can hold down the app in recent menu and a quicksetting will come up to let you remove it from list or look at app info.
Remember though, this only removes it from recent apps list. It doesn't close down the app itself.
Does it really matter though performance wise? I Always thought Android puts background apps into an "idle" state where they dont take up any resources until used? Although it is cool for people with OCD like me
demandarin said:
I liked that trick also when I first found out. Another thing too is that you can hold down the app in recent menu and a quicksetting will come up to let you remove it from list or look at app info.
Remember though, this only removes it from recent apps list. It doesn't close down the app itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does close the app. It just doesn't close background processes of the app.
Swiping an app from recent apps menu removes the app from cached memory, but keeps the background sync's (if it has any) still running. So you can kill off Facebook, but it's background sync (that would be started during system boot up anyway) remains.
You can test it, if you swipe browser from recent app's memory, it has to reload the page it was on. Same with Facebook app. But Facebook app's background process keeps running until you 'force stop' it.
Android application architecture runs in two layers, foreground and background processes. UI and the things you can use are written to memory when focus is lost from those apps, clearing them from recent apps also clears the memory those apps take at the time.
Is it useful? Yeah, for some things. But it won't improve your performance in any real noticeable way. Best you can do is swipe away apps that you don't need, keeping only apps that you want to keep in memory should you re-open them again. But that's usually too much micro-management to be worth it.
kristovaher said:
Yes it does close the app. It just doesn't close background processes of the app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps, BUT, not every app in the recent apps list is actually running. That's why many times (most of the time?) the screenshot isn't what you actually see when you select an app from the list--you're really restarting it.
I think it's safest and easiest to just assume that you're really only removing apps from the recent apps list, not actually managing what's running in any way.
DroidHam said:
Does it really matter though performance wise? I Always thought Android puts background apps into an "idle" state where they dont take up any resources until used? Although it is cool for people with OCD like me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it doesn't make any difference performance wise, but it makes the menu much more useable for me =D
Thanks for this message, this is my first android device and I've been trying to figure out how to "close" applications. Did a search in here (I think), prime manual search and googled it. I am slightly OCD and like to "close" thinks that I'm not using. Harkens back to my early Windows days when you closed apps to conserve memory.
In the manual it says to close application by clicking on an X in the recent apps menu. Though unless it is super tiny, there isn't one.
redandblack1287 said:
I just discovered that you can get rid of apps from the recent apps menu (the square button next to the home button) by swiping them to the side. I don't know why this makes me so retardedly happy, but I am sure that SOMEONE else out there will also appreciate this tidbit of information.
Anyone else have any nuggets of joy to share?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you have the dock, 2 finger gestures on the touchpad act as screen swipes. i.e. swipe two fingers across the tab, the tab changes screens. Also, if you want to actually kill the apps, add teh asus task manager widget to a screen. works great!
elybug said:
In the manual it says to close application by clicking on an X in the recent apps menu. Though unless it is super tiny, there isn't one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was an ASUS Honeycomb customization. It went away in ICS...
redandblack1287 said:
I just discovered that you can get rid of apps from the recent apps menu (the square button next to the home button) by swiping them to the side. I don't know why this makes me so retardedly happy, but I am sure that SOMEONE else out there will also appreciate this tidbit of information.
Anyone else have any nuggets of joy to share?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you have the dock, 2 finger gestures on the touchpad act as screen swipes. i.e. swipe two fingers across the tab, the tab changes screens. Also, if you want to actually kill the apps, add the asus task manager widget to a screen. works great!
kristovaher said:
Yes it does close the app. It just doesn't close background processes of the app.
Swiping an app from recent apps menu removes the app from cached memory, but keeps the background sync's (if it has any) still running. So you can kill off Facebook, but it's background sync (that would be started during system boot up anyway) remains.
You can test it, if you swipe browser from recent app's memory, it has to reload the page it was on. Same with Facebook app. But Facebook app's background process keeps running until you 'force stop' it.
Android application architecture runs in two layers, foreground and background processes. UI and the things you can use are written to memory when focus is lost from those apps, clearing them from recent apps also clears the memory those apps take at the time.
Is it useful? Yeah, for some things. But it won't improve your performance in any real noticeable way. Best you can do is swipe away apps that you don't need, keeping only apps that you want to keep in memory should you re-open them again. But that's usually too much micro-management to be worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's what I meant. I should of been more clear then. just swiping it doesn't close down app "Completely", meaning no background process either. you have to use a task manager or Force stop in order to "Truly" close n stop an app from running.
elybug said:
In the manual it says to close application by clicking on an X in the recent apps menu. Though unless it is super tiny, there isn't one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There isn't any in ICS, only in HC.
i didn't know that either until last week! ice cream is awesome :]
Conduitz said:
if you have the dock, 2 finger gestures on the touchpad act as screen swipes. i.e. swipe two fingers across the tab, the tab changes screens. Also, if you want to actually kill the apps, add teh asus task manager widget to a screen. works great!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know.....that Asus task manager widget does not work on mine. It doesn't matter if I press x next to one app or select kill all - nothing happpens. I think mine is broken
I removed it from one of my home screens, no need to have it if it doesn't work
demandarin said:
that's what I meant. I should of been more clear then. just swiping it doesn't close down app "Completely", meaning no background process either. you have to use a task manager or Force stop in order to "Truly" close n stop an app from running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a bit different though, because those background processes will (likely) already be running even if you don't start the app. Most of those background processes are started by boot activity in Android and others are started by scheduling activities (such as alarms or certain notifications and sync). These will be usually restarted once app is started again too (after Force Close) and if they are not already running (and they usually are).
Force Close is unnecessary unless you know that a certain app is bad for the system and was run accidentally, etc.
I'm very new to android and enjoying my S3 for two weeks. Sorry for the dump question but I'm still not sure about the interface that is shown after long press of home button.
a) Is it just a dummy task history including all active and inactive applications executed previously.
b) Or... Is it a task manager that shows only active background (consuming ram) applications.
I know that any application that have a RAM place will consume the battery, So which one of above item is the true one ?
An important second question: What does "Remove All" button do ? Just clears task history or kills all active background tasks ?
Regards...
buyukbang said:
I'm very new to android and enjoying my S3 for two weeks. Sorry for the dump question but I'm still not sure about the interface that is shown after long press of home button.
a) Is it just a dummy task history including all active and inactive applications executed previously.
b) Or... Is it a task manager that shows only active background (consuming ram) applications.
I know that any application that have a RAM place will consume the battery, So which one of above item is the true one ?
An important second question: What does "Remove All" button do ? Just clears task history or kills all active background tasks ?
Regards...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a history, not a list of active apps. From that screen, press task manager at the bottom left and go to the active applications tab on the very left (scroll the list of tabs if necessary). There you can see the list of active apps.
Don't forget that to exit most apps, you have to use the back button (or the exit fuction if the app has one, like Skype) rather than the home button.
buyukbang said:
I'm very new to android and enjoying my S3 for two weeks. Sorry for the dump question but I'm still not sure about the interface that is shown after long press of home button.
a) Is it just a dummy task history including all active and inactive applications executed previously.
b) Or... Is it a task manager that shows only active background (consuming ram) applications.
I know that any application that have a RAM place will consume the battery, So which one of above item is the true one ?
An important second question: What does "Remove All" button do ? Just clears task history or kills all active background tasks ?
Regards...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, i'm not using stock rom so i'm not very sure. But i think that's just inactive applications executed previously. If they were background tasks, and you killed them, they would continue running background later. You can check apps in Settings -> Apps -> Running
Semi-noob said:
Well, i'm not using stock rom so i'm not very sure. But i think that's just inactive applications executed previously. If they were background tasks, and you killed them, they would continue running background later. You can check apps in Settings -> Apps -> Running
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is a decent article that explains why you shouldn't get too worried about seeing apps in your running apps list. If you're worried about conserving the battery, it is much more important to switch off stuff when you don't need it. For example do not use auto-sync, just manually sync what you want time to time. Manually switch off everything that you do not use before leaving your phone idle, like the wifi, mobile data, gps, etc. Also it's a paradox but it seems that you have to set your "keep wi-fi on during sleep" to always in the wifi advanced settings!?
Thank you guys. This information is really usuaful for me !
@daviddema,
I read the article, thx for that, too. So do I understand correctly:
Even a completely empty RAM consumes as much as the one filled with cache data (to start it faster in the future) of stopped applications ?
buyukbang said:
Even a completely empty RAM consumes as much as the one filled with cache data (to start it faster in the future) of stopped applications ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
Empty RAM uses as much power as used RAM.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Thank you for the answer. Now it's more clear for me...
nodstuff said:
Yes.
Empty RAM uses as much power as used RAM.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse