Force Close Apps By Swiping Them Off

RealDane · Mar 31, 2019

Hello,

Is there an option in the settings to be able to actually force close ANY app that I swipe it up and off the screen from the "recent apps" screen?

Because music and such apps still play music in the background.

iPhones do it properly tho and that's what I like on the iphone and dislike on the Android when I switched to it from the iPhone.

I'm not happy about jumping from a horse to a donkey... I'm not flaming other things about Android on my Note 9 other than this fact that I have to take the complicated route of going to Settings>Apps>GooglePlayMusic>ForceStop... for each app.

If I need music or sound from any app like Youtube for example, to play in the background, I'll actually keep the app open in the "recent apps" list in the sense that I won't swipe it off the screen.

I need the curent action of swiping off the screen recent applications to completely properly close apps (a.k.a. ending the task and any task related to it, something like End Process Tree on Windows).

If there indeed is such an option to allow all apps on the "recent apps" list to completely force close, then I'll apologize for bothering. This also applies if there is an app that allows this. If not, for the love of God add it in a hotfix ASAP.

I want my RAM to be free as often as possible with a simple swipe (if closing one app at a time), or with a press of the button "close all apps". But more important is that if for some reason I need to stop the playback and the actual app, and any process related to it from running in the background for the rest of the day both to preserve battery and RAM, I want to be able to do it quickly and efficiently.

Thanks,

D.B.

olbriar · Mar 31, 2019

You should be able to bring up your recent apps and close the app in question or choose to close all. I hope this helps

mikedt · Mar 31, 2019

FWIW I think most users, including myself actually want music apps to continue playing in the background, when using other apps like a browser or something. And I would howl if my music stopped playing, if I wanted to look at a website, use satnav, pay for subway or buses etc.

"iPhones do it properly"...what iPhones can't play music in the background while using other apps? Well that would certainly be a deal breaker for me.

I thought YouTube would only play in background if you subscribed to their paid service.

RealDane · Apr 1, 2019

olbriar said:
You should be able to bring up your recent apps and close the app in question or choose to close all. I hope this helps

Ok I'll rephrase it as you clearly either don't understand what I said in the first message or you are tryharding the april's fools thingy.

It visibly closes the app from that screen, yes.

But consider for example the app Google Play Music. Music from this app still play when I do what you said. I have to bring the app in the foreground and press "pause" before closing it your way to make it stop playing audio.

What I would like, though, is to not to have to press pause before closing it. So, what I'm saying is, it would be great if it stooped playing audio by simply just closing it ordinarily.

You might think that's something the specific app developers should fix but I think it should be the same for every app.

mikedt said:
FWIW I think most users, including myself actually want music apps to continue playing in the background, when using other apps like a browser or something. And I would howl if my music stopped playing, if I wanted to look at a website, use satnav, pay for subway or buses etc.

"iPhones do it properly"...what iPhones can't play music in the background while using other apps? Well that would certainly be a deal breaker for me.

I thought YouTube would only play in background if you subscribed to their paid service.

Here we go again... Another tryhard april's fooler.

I think you guys perfectly understand me. It's just you guys were answering it on the 1st of april

All in all, I'll wait until someone decides to give an honest man's answer to a honeat man's question.

mikedt · Apr 1, 2019

RealDane said:
Here we go again... Another tryhard april's fooler.

I'm quite serious actually, you really don't want music players to continue playing in the background when you might be looking at something else? The last iPhone I had was 12 years ago, and I'm sure the iTunes music player on that would play in the background while looking at the Safari browser or whatever

But anyway, any apps can usually be stopped and cleared by simply swiping them away from the task switcher, including media players. Perhaps you've found some idiosyncrasy in the Samsung Galaxy Note9?

ocnbrze · Apr 1, 2019

Well this is no April fools joke or anything..... but

Yes I get it when swiping Play Music, it still plays. for me I use the play music widget to start and stop my playlist.

I still don't understand why this is a big deal for you. All of the other apps will close properly from the select all list.

You have the note 9 which has tons of ram so that should not be an issue.

I have the note 8, and I have never really had to worry about using too much ram.

mikedt · Apr 1, 2019

RealDane said:
Ok I'll rephrase it as you clearly either don't understand what I said in the first message or you are tryharding the april's fools thingy.

It visibly closes the app from that screen, yes.

But consider for example the app Google Play Music. Music from this app still play when I do what you said. I have to bring the app in the foreground and press "pause" before closing it your way to make it stop playing audio.

On my Huawei Mate 10, Google Play Music stops as soon as I swipe it away from the task switcher. And that's how it's supposed to work I think.

ocnbrze · Apr 1, 2019

mikedt said:
In my Huawei Mate 10, Google Music stops as soon as I swipe it away from the task switcher. And that's how it's supposed to work I think.

My note 8 just got updated to pie and when you select all to close all the apps, Play Music still plays in the background..... at least on mine it does.

GameTheory · Apr 1, 2019

Well here's another try-hard April fools' joke...

I you really need to force close apps, then there are many apps in the play store for doing this. Here is one example:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.force.stop.app

If this one doesn't tickle your twinky, then do a play store search for "force close apps" or "force stop apps".

mikedt · Apr 1, 2019

ocnbrze said:
My note 8 just got updated to pie and when you select all to close all the apps, Play Music still plays in the background..... at least on mine it does.

I just tried Play Music on a Galaxy S7 I acquired which is Oreo, and it's the same as your Note8, the music keeps playing. But on my Huawei which is updated to Pie, it stops playing when I close the apps or swipe them away. Which is what I'd expect to happen.

ocnbrze · Apr 1, 2019

mikedt said:
I just tried Play Music on a Galaxy S7 I acquired which is Oreo, and it's the same as your Note8, the music keeps playing. But on my Huawei which is updated to Pie, it stops playing when I close the apps or swipe them away. Which is what I'd expect to happen.

hmmmmmmm maybe its a brand thing then? it can't be a carrier thing.

mikedt · Apr 1, 2019

ocnbrze said:
hmmmmmmm maybe its a brand thing then? it can't be a carrier thing.

Could be a Samsung Galaxy thing?

FWIW I don't usually stop my players playing music this manner though. Generally I either tap the STOP in the app, or just turn off the Bluetooth speaker or headphones I'm using, and it stops automatically.

ocnbrze · Apr 2, 2019

so interesting i just bought a pixelbook and even the chrome os, you can force close apps programs

.....and when you play music and close it, it still continues to play music. i have to relaunch the play music app and either pause or stop the music from playing.

Daniel Fernandes · Apr 2, 2019

RealDane said:
But consider for example the app Google Play Music. Music from this app still play when I do what you said. I have to bring the app in the foreground and press "pause" before closing it your way to make it stop playing audio.

We want it that way. Most of us play music while keeping our phones off, or while doing something else on it. And we don't want the music to stop if we accidentally close all apps from the recent apps screen. This is why most music apps do not stop after removing them from that screen.

Pressing the pause button isn't that hard, if you don't want to launch the app, pause it from notifications. At least this is easier than pressing force-stop from settings.

But if you still want it that way, use Spotify. It has that bug, which may act as a "feature" for you. Not sure if it has been fixed though, but if it hasn't, enjoy your feature till they fix it.

ocnbrze · Apr 2, 2019

i understand that.....just an observation for the op. its just a little more difficult on my pixelbook.....its really no big deal for me,....just trying to help the op.

Hadron · Apr 2, 2019

Swiping an app away does not force stop it, it removes it from the recent tasks list. That's not the same thing by design: if they were equivalent then for example swiping your email app away would stop it checking for email until restarted. To be more technical it does not terminate services associated with the app. So my guess is that the particular way this app has been designed to allow playing in the background is the reason why swiping doesn't stop it (I've tried with a few media apps and some do, some don't).

Personally I'd just use the controls on the music app to close it. All of mine have controls in the notification shade (I don't use Google Play Music, and don't have it installed, so can't say about that one), so it's pull down and press the close button. But TBH I never use the recent apps thing to "close" apps anyway.

marctronixx · Apr 2, 2019

Some apps, like YouTube, cant be played when the screen is off unless you pay for the app on android. That’s by design.

I think , for example, when i was playing amazon music app, i had “close all” in the recent tabs (this was on Android 8) by mistake and it actually stopped the app from playing, so it CAN do it on some apps that dont want to be persistent in the background.

mikedt · Apr 2, 2019

Hadron said:
Swiping an app away does not force stop it, it removes it from the recent tasks list. That's not the same thing by design: if they where equivalent then for example swiping your email app away would stop it checking for email until restarted. To be more technical it does not terminate services associated with the app. So my guess is that the particular way this app has been designed to allow playing in the background is the reason why swiping doesn't stop it (I've tried with a few media apps and some do, some don't).

On my Huawei all media players stop playing when they're swiped away, and it's same on Oppo phones as well. However it swiping away Wechat, WhatsApp and QQ doesn't terminate them, thay keep running, as they should I think as these are all messaging and VOIP apps.

But on a Samsung S7 I've also got, media players don't stop playing when swiped away

Hadron · Apr 2, 2019

I know that the behaviour depends on android version, but since I believe your Huawei is quite recent that's probably not the difference. More likely a manufacturer mod, same as the way some manufacturers include deprecated features in their builds or remove standard ones such as formatting cards as internal storage. That's my guess anyway.

Force Close Apps By Swiping Them Off

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