Google Play is full of task manager for Android smartphones, i.e. applications that work like the Windows task manager, showing the other apps running in the background and the memory they occupy. On paper these apps are useful to see which applications are running in the background, but also to end those that are not needed remain active and recover memory, especially on smartphones with little memory (less than 3 GB of RAM).
In this guide, however, we will dispel some myth related to RAM memories on Android and, above all, we will show you how to truly manage active apps and RAM memory on any Android smartphone.
We will find that in reality these apps are not as useful as we thought and that we must absolutely avoid them in the management of memory resources, otherwise we will get the opposite effect to the desired one (app always in memory and greater consumption of resources, even when it concerns the battery .
READ ALSO: All the tricks of freeing RAM on Android
1) The task manager or task killer on Android is useless
As anticipated in the introduction, it is not helpful to have a task manager or task killer on the phone that promises to speed up the phone by automatically removing applications from memory when not in use.
Android is able to do this automatically, a third app does not need to do this.
There is a risk of obtaining the opposite effect: the newly closed app will be reopened by Android, and thus in an infinite cycle that consumes only resources and battery autonomy.
As seen in a previous guide, to optimize Android, free up memory and terminate processes we absolutely must not use task managers or app managers.
If we really want to save memory on Android, the only wise move to make is to close as many apps as possible that remain in the background in the integrated app manager: then click on the square symbol or the symbol with the three lines and swipe the apps that we don't want to stay in memory anymore.
In this way, we will not completely close the app, but only its execution window: the services and any background processes associated with it will remain active, so that you can still receive notifications.
If we have a phone with 4 GB or more of RAM it is not even convenient to make this move, we leave the apps running without problems.
READ ALSO: Clear the cache of all apps on Android to recover memory
2) Energy saving of modern telephones
Another aspect to deepen concerns the management of energy savings by some manufacturers of phones with Android installed, on all Huawei, Xiaomi and Samsung.
On these devices we will be able to find an Energy saving, Battery and performance menu or App management, which allow you to drastically reduce the RAM and battery consumption for the newly installed apps, blocking the auto-start permissions (the app does not will start on its own) and automatically close the execution window in the background.
These systems save a lot of energy and are effective (since they act at the system level), but sometimes they are too much: even legitimate apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Gmail may find it difficult to show notifications on such restrictive systems.
In this case, it is better to block only the heaviest apps and "let go" of the apps we use every day, so that we can still have access to notifications regardless of the presence or absence of the window in the background.
READ ALSO: Closing the background apps on iOS and Android is useless and unnecessary
3) Doze system and hibernation app
Starting from Android 6 Marshmellow, a special app hibernation mode called Zo has been introduced, which can remain in memory only if the smartphone screen is active and the app is in the foreground.
This method is much more effective than any task manager, in fact it has largely solved all the RAM and background app problems that consumed only resources.
It may happen that the Doze system (which is active by default, we will not have to touch anywhere) can fail and some apps remain in memory to occupy the resources that we want to allocate for another use.
In this case we can install the Greenify app on our smartphone, on which the operation of Doze is based.
Just install this app on our smartphone with Doze and select the apps that we want to hibernate correctly in any scenario; the app will take care of managing Doze every time we turn off the screen, so that no app can remain in memory for too long.
As soon as we reopen the app, it will be "thawed" and immediately ready for use; also from hibernation it is obviously possible to receive notifications, but in this case a lot depends on how the app manages the notifications: if we notice the presence of the GCM icon next to the name of the app, then we will still receive the notifications also with the app hibernated.
If we have a very old Android phone or hibernation is not working as it should, root permissions may be required to make the Greenify app work properly (usually it is not needed, but if we notice problems we take into consideration this possibility).
To unlock root permissions, we recommend you read our dedicated guide, found below.
READ ALSO -> How to do the Android Root to unlock the mobile phone
4) Conclusions
After reading this guide we will surely know how Android works and how to behave with memory management, without necessarily relying on "miraculous" apps that do not have much of a miracle.
If we want to control the battery consumption by an app, we can use both the integrated menu and a clearly better app to control which app consumes the most battery on Android, as recommended in the guide that we have inserted as a link.
If instead we wanted to deepen the discussion on closing the app on iOS and Android, I refer you to reading the following guide.
READ ALSO -> Closing the background apps on iOS and Android is useless and unnecessary
