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I enabled developer options on my Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos and then changed "Limit background process" option from Standard limit to No background process.

After that my phone is working fine, with no hanging problems or no slowness as before.

But my doubt is, will this change affect any process, updates, applications or anything which might cause an error or failure?

7 Answers 7

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Setting this option forces Android to stop each process as soon as it is empty (that is, when no services are started and no activities are on screen for that app).

To be clear: this option won't stop apps that would normally run in the background from doing so. Your mail client will still run periodically to check mail, if it's configured to do that. Apps that use Google Cloud Messaging to receive push messages from Internet servers (such as Gmail and Facebook) will still be able to do so. The option would be better named "Cached background process limit", since it limits apps that would otherwise show up with that label in the apps manager.

This should lead to your phone working faster. It might use slightly more or less battery, since it'll use some power to unloading apps from memory earlier than Android usually does it.

The battery impact will depend on your personal usage; If your device doesn't have much ram and/or you don't only use the same few apps all the time, you should get a small battery boost. If you only use the same few apps all the time, you might experience a larger battery drain (from unloading and reloading the apps from memory every time).

Because this is a development option, it can also trigger rare bugs in certain apps, and those apps' developers may not be keen to fix them. One example is that, on Nexus devices running 4.2.2, when this option is on, the in-built Calendar app will keep restarting itself with this option set, because stopping the cached background process causes the calendar's content provider to be removed, which causes a loop of services restarting each other to check for calendar updates. If this happens, the loop will run down your battery very quickly.

Automation

The setting will be reset every time your device is shut down. If you want to automate setting your preference at boot, you can use tasker with this task: https://taskernet.com/shares/?user=AS35m8mXwt%2Bxy%2Bkh8K4BRW8pJsHtAYqKGwf%2F0NNidJ2TYe0iDRQsJInNDFFMCPaPm1pYHKuaTMU%3D&id=Task%3AToggle+Background+Process+Limit

You will need to give tasker »Set proces limit permission« using adb with adb shell pm grant net.dinglisch.android.taskerm android.permission.SET_PROCESS_LIMIT.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/cn5ufe/task_toggle_androids_background_process_limit/

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    The restart bug is still present on Android 6.0....
    – Henry Hu
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 20:42
  • @HenryHu "It doesn't work if I change the behaviour of the OS in a way that's only for testing" isn't really much of a bug.
    – Dan Hulme
    Commented Nov 30, 2015 at 22:56
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    but the problem may surface in other situations. In a scenario when there is memory pressure, the Calendar app is also being killed and restarts itself. It should really be a service.
    – Henry Hu
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 18:42
  • Works like a charm! Enabled it on my XZ2C that had started to chug (still waiting for a new real small phone to update to...).
    – ssssaaaa
    Commented Jan 8 at 18:14
  • This setting has helped my preserve battery life, since my phone isn't overheating because of too many background processes running. The amount of apps silently crashing in the background has also diminished greatly. I have enabled showing errors for unresponsive background apps, to be able force close them before they start slow down and overheat my phone.
    – ssssaaaa
    Commented Jan 11 at 8:21
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I recently found that same setting (i.e., number of processes allowed to run in background), and I reduced that setting on my GT-S7562L from "Standard Limit" to only 1. I immediately saw a significant improvement in performance, and so far there have been no problems. I made the change out of desperation - my phone had nearly morphed into a brick. It was continually running slow, and would often just simply lock up. I have read that a shortfall of Android systems is that they allow applications to keep grabbing memory until it's gone. Maybe I have solved that problem for my phone. I guess I'll know in a few days, but so far I'm quite happy.

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I keep my phone at 4 background processes max, and it has much higher performance than on standard. I receive all my notifications (which I have personally managed in the notifications setting) without any notable difference. I am very pleased that this setting exists in developer options. Also provides for enhanced security and lower battery consumption.

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Setting limit to phone background process can really improve the performance of your phone. Only, if you open an application, the phone will take a few seconds to load since it will load first the necessary files to be used by a certain apps.

Another advantage, you can prolong the battery life since there is no background process running.

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    Is there any reference to backup this answer, or this is based on your experience?
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 8:32
  • Maybe the lack of background process compensates the excessive app load?
    – marcolopes
    Commented Jan 4, 2019 at 4:59
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One of the problems you may face yourself with is that certain services that run in the background (Tasker, Google Location Services, etc) may quit unexpectedly. Other than that, I think that there are no other problem with limiting background apps.

Edit: what you selected makes it impossible for apps like I mentioned above to stop working. It won't be possible for gmail, for example, to update you on your received emails.

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    No such problems. Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 21:51
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    This is misinformation, this setting does NOT affect system services like gmail. Take a look at your recent applications feature, these are what the setting is referring to as a "background process". See the top answer by @dan-hulme for more information. Commented Sep 14, 2015 at 11:44
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If you will choose no background processes your phone will revert ro 1995 Nokia mobile. It will stop all types of notification update and prosser data transmission, your phone will only perform for taking a call or messages from your mobile number service provider.

Keep your phone in standard background process until it's not become 2 year old and performing very slow.

You should keep at least 1 or 2 background processes to be in touch with smart and latest information.

There is one other option available which is to just selectively stop all background activities, it's will save your battery life and also reduce (prevent ?) heating problems.

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    It's definitely not true that it'll stop any notifications or any background services from running. Basically all information in this answer is wrong. Commented Sep 14, 2023 at 1:53
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Do each other a favour, set it to "no background processes" and comment afterwards about what you notice in differences. I still receive notifications of any app when it's set to "no background processes". In fact, it gives you the option to use the system cache for background apps, or completely not, or a maximum like 1,2,3,4. It won't exit apps or services completely.

I think, setting this to "no background processes" is a good idea if you have a cheap smartphone with low or mid-end hardware, just because some of them are just better off without anything in cache.

The UI and switching apps will be noticeably faster, because RAM and CPU power will not be allocated to these cached background activities, resulting in more performance in general.

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