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I haven't restart my phone since the day I got it however decided I would give it a go since my contacts seem to disappear intermittently. Anyhoo, it prompted me that if I restarted my phone anything stored in memory would be cleared. How do I find out what is stored in memory and what is being cleared?

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What's your device? I restart device once a day at-least, due to development purposes or other reasons also. Can you provide a screenshot of the prompt you got? because I have never seen this prompt on any android device. – Sameer Sharma Apr 25 '12 at 9:07
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It depends on the application. All applications are notified when the phone is shutting down (and also when said apps move to the background) and can choose to save state at that time. As the answer below states, some sorts of apps, like games, choose not to save state. – ctt Apr 25 '12 at 10:47
@Sameer Sharma - Not sure how I can provide a screenshot. Any suggestions? I have a HTC Evo 3D running version 2.3.4 of Android. – PeanutsMonkey Apr 25 '12 at 18:51
It isn't useful when users down vote a question without noting the reason. If I know the reason I could amend the question. – PeanutsMonkey Apr 26 '12 at 20:33

1 Answer

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Things that would be cleared are anything that isn't saved, open applications, etc. For example, if you were playing a game, and just pressed the home key the game would go to the background and be paused. When you restart your phone, you will lose that game (up until the last point it saved).

Other things that you leave half finished, such as an unwritten email might get lost, but even that is unlikely because I notice Android pretty much makes sure I never lose anything.

It's not a bad idea to restart your device once in a while, but you really do not have to worry about losing anything. It's safe.

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Is there a way to tell which applications are open and do not save their contents saved? – PeanutsMonkey Apr 25 '12 at 18:52
@PeanutsMonkey On some devices you can hold the Home button and click Task Manager to see the running processes. Otherwise check under Settings -> Applications. – Matthew Read♦ Apr 25 '12 at 21:27
@ Matthew Read - Thanks but that doesn't tell me that the contents of the application are not yet saved. – PeanutsMonkey Apr 25 '12 at 23:34

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