Many people think that closing the background applications on their Android phone all the time will improve its performance. Misconceptions like this had some validity in the early days of Android, but the landscape has changed since then.

In reality, you can do more harm than good if you do it regularly close Apps on your Android device. Let’s see why this is so.

Close apps on your Android phone

Before we get into the details, let’s make sure we are all clear about what we mean by closing apps.

Depending on the brand and Android version of your phone, you can view open apps in your phone’s app switcher by doing either of these two things:

• Swipe and hold halfway across the screen.

• Tap the square navigation button at the bottom of the screen.

After you open the app switcher, you’ll see all of the apps that are running in the background.

There are two main methods of closing apps. You can swipe up in any app to close them one at a time or tap Delete everything to close all running apps at once (this usually appears at the bottom of the list). If necessary, you can also go to the app management menu ( Settings> Apps> Show all X apps ) and forceclose Apps from there.

Why you shouldn’t close apps on Android

Many factors prove that it is counterproductive for you to do it regularly close Apps on Android. Let’s take a detailed look at a list of these factors and debunk some performance-related myths along the way.

1. Closing Android apps will not extend your phone’s battery life

It’s natural to think that background apps are constantly draining your phone’s battery. However, these apps aren’t the cause of the battery drain, and closing them frequently won’t increase your phone’s battery life.

Android has evolved over the years and its advanced battery management features like Doze don’t allow background apps to negatively affect your phone’s battery life. These features put your background apps into a kind of hibernation, half-sleep mode, in which each app’s CPU and internet usage is minimal.

2. Your Android phone is not running foreground apps any faster

Another myth is that if you stop apps running in the background, apps in the foreground will run faster. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, as Android intelligently manages your RAM while keeping multiple apps in memory at the same time. It doesn’t allow these apps to affect your phone’s performance.

Also, if you reopen a background app that Android has stored in RAM, it will appear immediately because it was already in memory. Hence, your phone feels more responsive when you have apps running in the background. There’s no point in closing apps all the time if you open them a few moments later anyway.

3. Closing apps consumes more CPU power

If you keep closing and restarting apps, your phone’s CPU will have to draw power every time to process these commands.

Since it is better for your apps to stay in memory, it is a waste of processing power to use your CPU for these commands. In addition, many apps restart a background process even after you do close the main app. So there is no point in trying close them over and over again.

4. Regularly closing and restarting apps consumes more battery

If you make your phone’s processor use power by performing repetitive commands, such as: For example, starting an app and then closing it will definitely use more battery.

For example, let’s say your goal when closing background apps is to save battery life. In this case, you should instead take other energy-saving measures, such as: For example, dim the brightness, deactivate notifications or switch to energy-saving mode. These are methods that will actually help you save battery.

5. Background apps don’t have a big impact on mobile data

You can restrict the background data for certain Android apps to save your mobile data. Plus, the half-sleep background apps don’t use a lot of data anyway.

In the same Settings> Apps> Show all X apps Menu already mentioned, Android offers you options to limit the use of data, notifications and battery by apps. You’d better put these restrictions in place to have peace of mind for the future.

6. Your Android phone will automatically close unnecessary apps

Android has gotten smart enough to understand which apps should and should work close. Its memory management algorithm works in such a way that unused apps are removed from memory in case the RAM becomes full.

In other words, your Android phone will take care of itself automatically. You don’t have to keep deleting apps from memory to improve your device’s performance. Modern versions of Android are smart enough to know which apps you are using all the time and which are not.

When should you close apps on Android?

There are definitely exceptions where it is a good idea to close some Android apps. A big exception is when one or more of your apps has crashed or frozen. In such a situation, closing these apps is your immediate solution.

Just for clarification: you are not contradicting any of the above by closing the frozen Android app. This is because the purpose of your action is to update this app by closing and restarting it.

Another situation where closing an app would be useful is when you are no longer using it – especially “heavy” apps like games or navigation apps that have been running in the background for a while. This is a simple point that should not be buried under the arguments outlined above.

You could too close certain apps that you don’t need to organize your app switcher. It can be difficult to manage too many apps in the app switcher, and it can be difficult to find a single app out of the many.

Avoid closing apps to make your Android phone more efficient

A broad consensus about keeping Android apps closed all the time is that you should avoid doing it as much as possible. It would be best if you only close apps in the above situations.

In addition, closing background apps will have a negative impact on the battery life and overall performance of your phone. The benefits you want from shutting down background apps are easily achievable with Android’s robust settings.

Android is a great operating system that takes into account apps that run in the background. If you are new to this feature, there is a lot more of Android waiting to be discovered.