Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
KATIDID121082
Enthusiast - Level 2

When the new Android update (7.0 Nougat) rolled out, I discovered, much to my frustration, that the "Recently Used Apps" list no longer holds apps in the list indefinitely.  Just because I haven't used an app in a couple hours doesn't mean I want to have to navigate to the app again and reopen it.  Is there a way for me to change a setting so that all open apps will remain in that list until I manually remove/close them...like the last OS handled this?  (I realize this is stretching the term "recently" a bit, but this is related to ease of use, at least for me.)

Also, I just recently noticed that sometimes I will have two "instances" of the same app open at the same time, so it's kind of ridiculous that it won't keep one app open, but then keeps another app open twice.

I've done my best to search for an answer on this, but the internet has been suprisingly unhelpful.  Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
lukevinyl
Specialist - Level 2

You can try going to open up the developer mode on device and this does have an option on how many apps to keep before closed. Don't know if this will work for certain on Nougat but is worth a try.... Let me know if you need help setting this up Smiley Happy

Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

Which phone model do you have?

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
KATIDID121082
Enthusiast - Level 2

I got into developer mode, but I can't find a place to select the number of apps to keep before closing.  In the "Applications" section, here's what I found:

  • a toggle for clear every activity as soon as I leave it (the opposite of what I want)
  • a choice of how many background processes to limit
  • a toggle to "Show all ANRs" (app not responding)
  • a place to toggle apps between active and inactive (not possible for some Google/Samsung "bloatware", of course)
  • a toggle to make any app eligible to be written to external storage (nice!)
  • a toggle to make all activities resizable for multi-window

Let me know if I'm missing something.  Thanks for the help.

Btw, I have a Galaxy S7, to respond to Ann154​'s question.

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

KATIDID121082, I totally understand you wanting easy access to your applications. We're here to help you. We don't suggest making changes in developer mode to avoid causing device issues. I have the same phone and my applications stay open for quite a while. However, we suggest clearing out the recently used applications as they can cause an increase in data usage and can affect the way your phone operates. How long do the applications stay open for you?

MarcusS_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

If my response answered your question please click the ?Correct Answer? button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
KATIDID121082
Enthusiast - Level 2

Thanks for the response.  How long do the applications stay open?  In short, not as long as I'd like...

Actually, I'd want them to be on the list indefinitely (or at least until I decide to close them), but if it's a matter of actually specifying an amount of time, I would say at LEAST eight hours.

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
lukevinyl
Specialist - Level 2

Rats! I was hoping within Nougat the Developer options would possibly assist in this but you are correct, it seems as if this is going in the opposite direction than what you would like.

Sorry, I remembered the options within Developer options having to do with this but didn't realize it would further decrease the number of apps/activites kept in background and not allow for more or to increase the time. Best of luck to you in figuring this out!

Something else to consider would possibly be a task manager app as these usually have a whitelist that you could add at least the most important apps if not all of them so that they wouldn't be closed or cleared out of memory by the stock "background manager". Just a thought Smiley Happy

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

Samsung phones are more aggressive in shutting down applications and purging them from the memory than any other Android devices.

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: Recently Used Apps -- Keeping them longer
KATIDID121082
Enthusiast - Level 2

What's interesting is, before this latest upgrade of Android (or at least when I still had my Galaxy S4 mini), it wasn't an issue; the recent apps list just kept everything visible until I manually cleared them.

Probably if it had always been the way it is now, I wouldn't know any better and wouldn't be frustrated by it!  Smiley Happy