There is a kind of myth that says that closing an app in this way helps us save battery and makes the phone go faster . However, the truth is that we are facing a bad habit or, in other words, a habit that is quite undesirable.

Why shouldn’t you force quit an app?

The first thing we have to say in this regard is that by closing the apps from the Android navigation bar we are not performing a total closure. That is, even if we close the main app, some processes may still remain open in the background. Therefore, although the device will consume a little less battery, there will still be resources “sucking from the jar” in the back room of our Android.

And not only that. Forcing an app to close that is already open usually has the opposite effect. Battery management is one of the most important sections of mobile devices, and in the case of Android, this is an issue that developers have been working on for years to optimize its performance.

To give us an idea, today the system is so optimized that having an app open in the background consumes very little battery. In fact, if we close an app and open it again, the energy consumption will be greater than if we have it open in the background with the rest of the apps until we decide to use it again.

Performance may improve a little while all the apps are closed, but once we open the app again the system will have to reload all the necessary resources for it to run correctly. All this charging comes with such significant battery consumption that it makes forcing it to close simply not worth it.

Moments when it is advisable to force closure

In any case, although forced closing does not make much sense when it comes to battery saving, it can be very useful in other areas. For example, when an app does not work correctly , closes unexpectedly or exhibits erratic behavior.

In these cases, forcing the application to close will serve to restart all the services and processes associated with the app, and in general, it will help us correct any specific problem with the application without having to restart the phone or reinstall the app.

You can see how to force close an app on Android correctly by taking a look at THIS OTHER POST . Or if you prefer, you can also install an app like Force Stop App (NO ROOT) dedicated exclusively to force closing applications.

Confirm that the app has been closed completely

Finally, if you have doubts about whether an app has really been closed, and that it is no longer running in the background, you can confirm this by checking the list of running services .

As we mentioned in the post ” 5 hidden Android functions that you should know to be an expert “, the list of running services is a little hidden, in the options menu for developers .

To unlock this hidden menu we must open the Android settings menu, enter “Phone information” and click 7 times in a row on the “Build number” section. Afterwards, we will return to the general settings menu and enter “System -> Developer Options”.

Here we will see an option called « Running services «. If we enter we will see all the services that are active, classified by type (system, applications).

You unlock the phone and display the list of windows with all the apps and games that you have open in the background, and then close all the apps. This is what is known as “force closing” applications.

For example, if we enter the details of Instagram, we will see that the application itself is running, but also another service called “Notification Service.” To stop any service, simply click on “Stop”.