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How to close an app completely?

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Sunny Rio

Android Enthusiast
Many apps run in the background when closed. Boinc (continues processing science tasks), Ebay (to give me notifications), etc. Swiping up does not close the background part. How do I actually close them completely? Every webpage I found says swipe up! Well they're wrong!

Android 11 if that matters.
 
I didn't want to kill the app. Just close it and give it a chance to save anything. I can't believe they missed out something as basic as this. Just looking for something like the Windows system tray by the clock. I can't even find a list of everything running and eating memory.
 
Swiping up slowly from the bottom and choose close all closes apps that I have opened and are continuing to run such as a music player designed to run in background.
 
Do you mean after pressing the ||| icon? If so, mine does the same as swiping fast. If not, I can't get it to do anything, it just passes the swipe to the app.
 
I swipe up from the bottom right corner and all of the recent apps that were opened to swipe left and right to tap on one to reopen. Below those apps is a choice to close all. clicking that link returns them to the state prior to me opening them.
 
Are you also in Android 11? They change it for every version.

Swiping up from the bottom right opens a list of ALL apps as icons, not running ones.

If I click the ||| symbol bottom right, I get a small version of the window of each app, and can go through them left to right. There is a close all, but clicking that is the same as swiping each one up to close it one by one. The app continues to run in the background.
 
I'm on 12 but it was the same before the upgrade. If I pull up from the middle of the screen at the bottom I access my app drawer. From the bottom right corner however brings up recently accessed apps. It could be a Samsung thing.

I use it often to kill a stream or music player. I use it to completely close an alarm app for a BT temperature sensor.
 
I don't know what an "app drawer" is. This is my desktop:

1678772684082.png


At the bottom, left button is "back", middle button is "show desktop", right button opens the running programs in smaller windows, and I can swipe one up to "close" it, but it still runs in the background. Going up slightly, three icons I somehow put there for the three most commonly used programs. Above that, icons for what I fairly often use. Swipe up from bottom I get icons for everything installed so I can launch rarer stuff. Swip down from top for notifications.

Are you sure swiping up COMPLETELY closes the apps?
 
The app drawer is accessed by swiping up from the center of the screen. I want to kill whomever decided that the 'all apps' icon had to be removed.

Completely closing apps isn't possible in Android. The main app might close, but any system process it runs will continue to run in the background. That is by design. Such as, you can swipe up on Samsung Music and close it, but if you use a car with Bluetooth and your phone pairs to it, you'll likely hear your phone's music playing because Samsung Music continues to listen for requests from headsets or other sources to conveniently resume playing.

FYI you can add up to five shortcuts to the 'dock' or area with the phone, notepad and camera icons are. It 'expands' to allow up to five.
 
nickdalzell said:
The app drawer is accessed by swiping up from the center of the screen. I want to kill whomever decided that the 'all apps' icon had to be removed.
Click to expand...
Still not sure we're looking at the same design of OS. When I do that I see every single app installed, in alphabetical (I think I chose that) order. How else would you open something you haven't made a shortcut for?

nickdalzell said:
Completely closing apps isn't possible in Android. The main app might close, but any system process it runs will continue to run in the background. That is by design. Such as, you can swipe up on Samsung Music and close it, but if you use a car with Bluetooth and your phone pairs to it, you'll likely hear your phone's music playing because Samsung Music continues to listen for requests from headsets or other sources to conveniently resume playing.
Click to expand...

Severely flawed design. Often you want to do that, but you might want to stop it being able to do that temporarily. Or free up RAM (which on my phone is very small! - 8 cores and 2GB!)

nickdalzell said:
FYI you can add up to five shortcuts to the 'dock' or area with the phone, notepad and camera icons are. It 'expands' to allow up to five.
Click to expand...
I assume you mean compresses. If it expanded it would go off the edge of the screen.

I can't think of a need for me to do that. I have 3 common functions and 5 less common functions.
 
Sunny Rio said:
Still not sure we're looking at the same design of OS. When I do that I see every single app installed, in alphabetical (I think I chose that) order. How else would you open something you haven't made a shortcut for?



Severely flawed design. Often you want to do that, but you might want to stop it being able to do that temporarily. Or free up RAM (which on my phone is very small! - 8 cores and 2GB!)


I assume you mean compresses. If it expanded it would go off the edge of the screen.

I can't think of a need for me to do that. I have 3 common functions and 5 less common functions.
Click to expand...
You press the ||| once, and you swipe to the right, until you see "close apps" on the bottom of the screen, I have the same OS on my tablet.
 
Sunny Rio said:
Still not sure we're looking at the same design of OS. When I do that I see every single app installed, in alphabetical (I think I chose that) order. How else would you open something you haven't made a shortcut for?



Severely flawed design. Often you want to do that, but you might want to stop it being able to do that temporarily. Or free up RAM (which on my phone is very small! - 8 cores and 2GB!)


I assume you mean compresses. If it expanded it would go off the edge of the screen.

I can't think of a need for me to do that. I have 3 common functions and 5 less common functions.
Click to expand...
(Either that or long press an icon your desktop, and you can see a pop up menu with Uninstall to get rid of that pesky stuff)
 
Milo Williamson said:
You press the ||| once, and you swipe to the right, until you see "close apps" on the bottom of the screen, I have the same OS on my tablet.
Click to expand...
Why swipe to the right? Close all appears immediately after clicking |||. And FFS say click, it's not press or tap.
But I was referring to the ability to see all apps. Or were you talking about all running apps?
Milo Williamson said:
(Either that or long press an icon your desktop, and you can see a pop up menu with Uninstall to get rid of that pesky stuff)
Click to expand...
Not sure what that has to do with what we were talking about, but yes I know.
 
Sunny Rio said:
Why swipe to the right? Close all appears immediately after clicking |||. And FFS say click, it's not press or tap.
But I was referring to the ability to see all apps. Or were you talking about all running apps?

Not sure what that has to do with what we were talking about, but yes I know.
Click to expand...
Ah there you go. See all apps, that is what it does. It opens all windows that you can see what is running in the precess.
 
I guess there's an app for that. One of those tidying up freeing up RAM things. Trouble is, last time I used one, somehow the things I closed shortly reopened! In Windows I can control what opens and when. Android gives the user very little control on their own device!
 
Sunny Rio said:
I guess there's an app for that. One of those tidying up freeing up RAM things. Trouble is, last time I used one, somehow the things I closed shortly reopened! In Windows I can control what opens and when. Android gives the user very little control on their own device!
Click to expand...
Slide down the top menu,see the tiny gear? It is called settings, you can head over to storage to see how much RAM you are using.
 
I just get settings the same way as I open an app, it's an icon in the main complete list.

I see nothing called anything like storage in settings.
 
Stop trying to free up RAM on Android. It's only going to make your issues worse. Android is based on Linux. In Linux "unused RAM is wasted RAM" and it's just going to try to keep filling it up and things such as task killers will ruin your life with Android. Android isn't Windows and doesn't suffer from the effects of high RAM use as Window does (heck, Windows since version 10 doesn't anymore, either, these all are old problems more akin to Windows XP)

There are tons of apps that 'clean your RAM' or 'cool your CPU' or 'optimize your battery' but they're all garbage. They're called Task Killers and there's a lot of threads here as to why they should NEVER be used.

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

I'll let the Mod decides to move this or not, or sticky it or not, because this is (to many) still a subjective matter. I agree with this article and their findings, so I thought I'd share because I have noticed recently people mentioning they are using ATK on their Epic. This recent article...
androidforums.com
 
nickdalzell said:
Stop trying to free up RAM on Android. It's only going to make your issues worse. Android is based on Linux. In Linux "unused RAM is wasted RAM" and it's just going to try to keep filling it up and things such as task killers will ruin your life with Android. Android isn't Windows and doesn't suffer from the effects of high RAM use as Window does (heck, Windows since version 10 doesn't anymore, either, these all are old problems more akin to Windows XP)

There are tons of apps that 'clean your RAM' or 'cool your CPU' or 'optimize your battery' but they're all garbage. They're called Task Killers and there's a lot of threads here as to why they should NEVER be used.

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

I'll let the Mod decides to move this or not, or sticky it or not, because this is (to many) still a subjective matter. I agree with this article and their findings, so I thought I'd share because I have noticed recently people mentioning they are using ATK on their Epic. This recent article...
androidforums.com
Click to expand...

Wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. If something is in memory and running, it cannot get swapped out as it will have to come back in again to process. So there's less RAM for the program you're trying to use. You cannae break the laws of physics cap'n. If you were correct, why don't we just put 1GB of RAM in PCs? I wonder....

richardwilson said:
To completely close an app, follow these steps:

  1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold your finger in place for a moment until the app switcher appears.
  2. Swipe left or right to find the app you want to close.
  3. Swipe the app's preview image up and off the top of the screen to close the app completely.
This will not only close the app but also remove it from your Phone's RAM, which can help improve performance and battery life. Keep in mind that some apps may continue running in the background even after you've closed them, especially if they are performing tasks like playing music or downloading files. If you want to prevent an app from running in the background, you can disable its background app refresh feature in your Phone's settings.
Click to expand...

1. Doesn't work. I think you meant press the ||| button.
3. That's not completely. The app is still running as it still reacts to things.
 
It's not wrong at all. Linux/UNIX has been this way for decades. What you're doing will just cause reduced battery and severe performance problems. Did you even read the link I posted? this used to be argued daily on these forums. Heck, I once was in your exact position--wouldn't take any advice given here, and assumed having a task killer and battery optimizer was a good thing. I wanted to be 'in control' of my device to an extreme. You know what? It bit me and I realize what I was led to believe was all wrong and I just stop worrying about what is running on my phone. My phone is 11 years old and still works.

Android is designed, much like Linux and UNIX before it, to fill the RAM up with the most commonly used tasks based on an algorithm that 'learns' which apps you use the most, in order to make loading those apps and services faster. If it needs extra RAM for say a game or other app, it removes those running services/apps on its own (it's called the OOM, or Out of Memory service) on demand, without you needing to do anything.

By using task killers, you're force quitting every one of those services, possibly breaking notifications from them, and the CPU works harder (and so does battery drain) to restart those services, and ultimately it can't remember which apps you use the most and the system will act like an old i486 PC and chug along, lag and run hot.

There is no 'swap' or 'page file' in Android. It's not neccessary. Again, this ain't Windows XP. The way Android works is completely opposite the way Windows works.

www.howtogeek.com

Why You Shouldn’t Use a Task Killer On Android

Some people think that task killers are important on Android. By closing apps running in the background, you’ll get improved performance and battery life – that’s the idea, anyway. In reality, task killers can reduce your performance and battery life.
www.howtogeek.com www.howtogeek.com

forum.xda-developers.com

Why You Shouldn’t Use a Task Killer On Android

So i saw many posts on which people have asked as to which task killer should be used ! and then i stumble upon this site which provided me the details, i just complied info sources-by Chris Hoffman...
forum.xda-developers.com forum.xda-developers.com
 
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I also did this automatically with my first Razr cell phone,completely forgot how backwards it was from Windows, believe me, we should turn off that part of the mind, and change it over.
 
nickdalzell said:
It's not wrong at all. Linux/UNIX has been this way for decades. What you're doing will just cause reduced battery and severe performance problems. Did you even read the link I posted? this used to be argued daily on these forums. Heck, I once was in your exact position--wouldn't take any advice given here, and assumed having a task killer and battery optimizer was a good thing. I wanted to be 'in control' of my device to an extreme. You know what? It bit me and I realize what I was led to believe was all wrong and I just stop worrying about what is running on my phone. My phone is 11 years old and still works.

Android is designed, much like Linux and UNIX before it, to fill the RAM up with the most commonly used tasks based on an algorithm that 'learns' which apps you use the most, in order to make loading those apps and services faster. If it needs extra RAM for say a game or other app, it removes those running services/apps on its own (it's called the OOM, or Out of Memory service) on demand, without you needing to do anything.
Click to expand...
I don't need to read anything. I can use basic common sense, just think about it instead of believing an article.

You have say 2GB of RAM. You attempt to launch 3GB worth of apps. Every one of those apps is performing regular functions. It has to be in RAM to do that. Even if it's in the background, just providing notifications, like my Ebay app which tells me when I've won an auction, it has to be in RAM to perform that function. If I'm out of RAM, those apps therefore have to be swapped back and forth between RAM and disk. There is no magical way to avoid this.

I happen to use Linux for some scientific programs. Guess what, they need x amount of RAM. Don't give it to them and they slow down or crash. Linux isn't magic, Android isn't magic. You need the physical RAM to be there.

Again, if what you were saying was true, why don't they make phones with pitifully tiny amounts of RAM? You claim it's unimportant.
 
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