Now that the memory RAM has become the most precious component of mobile phones and that manufacturers are becoming very conservative with the amount they are willing to launch with their devices, it is good to remember a trick that allows you to release a significant amount and improve its performance and autonomy. It has a cost, of course. It is not an option that is hidden at the whim of Googlebut it affects the operation of Android and that is why it is in the Developer Optionsthe hidden menu Android for programmers, technicians and advanced users.
There is the option to limit background activitywhich is the one I have used and with which I have been able to quantify 2.5GB RAM increase in available memory after killing background processes. This has consequences on the operation of Android, but not what is usually thought.
Prevent background processes from running will not stop you from receiving notifications of the application Phoneof Messages or apps like Facebook and Gmail. These apps will continue to check and send notifications because they use Firebase Cloud MessagingFCM, which sends push notifications to those apps from the FCM servers. That action It is not a background processso stopping these types of processes, which take up gigabytes of RAM, will not affect most of your notifications. It simply removes cached data that is not being used.
Yes, it is true that you may notice some changes in the operation of your mobile after doing so. Notifications may take a while a little more to arrivea few seconds, and not be so immediate. The applications They will take longer to open since they have no data in cache to access faster and location tracking featuresfor example with the weather app, require manual action to operate. Normally it is enough to open the app. In exchange, you get better performance and autonomy on your device.
How to activate ‘Limit background processes’ on Android
The first step is to activate the Developer Optionsfor which you must follow the route Settings > Phone information > Build number. Press sevenfold Click on this last option to display a message indicating that Developer Options are activated.
Before limiting background activity, it is a good idea to check how much RAM memory cached processes occupy and you can later verify the amount of RAM you have gained. Follow the route Settings > System > Developer Options > Running services > tap on the three points and select Cached processes.
Here Android shows the amount of memory used, the amount occupied by the running services in cache and the amount that is free, which in my case are 2.5GB of the total 16 GB of the system, which increased to 5 GB after limiting background processes.
To do so, follow the path Settings > System > Developer Options > Limit background processeswhich is found in the section System. Once you tap on the option, Android displays several options with the Standard limit selected by default. This limit varies by manufacturer, but is around 20 background processes. Select No background processes.
Now you can go back to the option Running services and see how much RAM memory your Android mobile has freed up. You should also notice an improvement in autonomy by not having background processes consuming energy.