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I'm not a programmer. And as far as I know, Android uses as much RAM as possible, loading as many apps as possible, so that launching / opening (or returning to them) is smoother.

My question is:

Is there any way to choose which applications I ALWAYS want to keep in memory, and which ones I NEVER want to have there?

For example:

WhatsApp is a very common app. I would always want it to be there. Google Maps is always open and occupying space. I barely use it, and I don't mind to waiting 5-10secs until it opens. It would be better to use that RAM for other apps, such as my browser.

Thanks in advance.

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What android version are you referring to? –  t0mm13b Jan 22 '13 at 14:03
I don't recommend trying to come up with a way to outsmart Android's system resource handling. The Android OS handles the closing of specific apps/services very well and to try to manually control this will lead to unexpected results. I highly do not recommend you looking into task killers, etc. The OS will simply restart any service you kill which will waste resources (battery, processing time, etc.). –  Bryan Denny Jan 22 '13 at 14:53

3 Answers 3

You can never "choose" per-se an app and dictate that the app will have that guaranteed amount of memory.

Sure, Google Maps consume space, but that's for the actual application, does not mean its hogging up memory, Android is pretty smart when it comes to memory management.

When you long press the home key, it shows the recent apps list, that does not mean they are all loaded at the same time. Android keeps track of which activities was shown and if necessary load them again, and once the pressure of RAM space hits a certain threshold, Android will boot them out to make room for other apps.

You cannot override Android's dictation of how and what application should be in RAM, just by a user's presumption that "this certain app should be there in memory and has guaranteed X amount of RAM, because I want it to"

Android is not Windows, where their Task Manager is available at all times via Ctrl+Alt+Del and zap away processes to "free up memory".. That mantra should be firmly repeated ad-nauseum! :)

As Ryan Conrad's statement in the comment, from the discussion arising out of the likes of RAM Boosters, Task Killers et al, this statement sums up exactly why the apps mentioned can have a negative effect on the battery, not to mention introducing instabilities into the system - It's CPU cycles that you should be more worried about than memory. WORD CPU cycles drains the battery regardless and as the commentator says Free Memory is wasted Memory. Let the OS handle it. It is better at doing it. It knows what memory can be freed safely without causing additional strain and drain on the device

Simples really :)

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Yes, but you can say for Android to kill unnecessary applications and services to have (for example) browser working faster. –  ArtemStorozhuk Jan 22 '13 at 14:19
Bzzzt!!!! Wrong! You will end up having to restart services which slows down and chewing up more battery! Read this thus negating battery life as a result! –  t0mm13b Jan 22 '13 at 14:21
Free Memory is wasted Memory. Let the OS handle it. It is better at doing it. It knows what memory can be freed safely without causing additional strain and drain on the device. having 100% (or close to) memory in use is not a bad thing. It's CPU cycles that you should be more worried about than memory. –  Ryan Conrad Jan 22 '13 at 15:29
@RyanConrad exact! I'll quote you on this important last statement!!!! +1 from me! :) –  t0mm13b Jan 22 '13 at 15:30
Sorry, I answered in the "Smart RAM Booster" comment. I'm not used to this forum :) –  SyaoranLi Jan 23 '13 at 14:22

You can try Smart RAM Booster:


How RAM Booster works

RAM Booster is designed to overcome these issues by selectively kill less important apps that are running in the background but consumes considerable device’s memory. RAM Booster comes with auto-boost in 4 levels: aggressive, strong, medium, gentle.

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That app looks like a equivalent of Windows Task Manager, zap away processes, and this could interfere with Android's own Memory Manager and increase de-stability overall. Cannot help wonder, but the impression I get that this app requires root... –  t0mm13b Jan 22 '13 at 14:05
@t0mm13b Root is not needed... –  ArtemStorozhuk Jan 22 '13 at 14:14
I find these apps like battery savers and memory managers tend to take up additional resources and not really improve overall performance –  spences10 Jan 22 '13 at 15:43
That's one of the typical "shoot-and-kill" games, as the last quoted paragraph clearly shows: it works by by selectively kill less important apps, which is not the job of a task-killer but of the OOM-killer. Besides, most of those "less important apps" will immediately restart either -- so all you gain from it is more battery drain. Very smart. Moreover, as spences10 just wrote, they use up ressources themselves... –  Izzy Jan 22 '13 at 15:46
@spences10 I also don't use them - it's just application which OP looking for. –  ArtemStorozhuk Jan 22 '13 at 15:48

If your device is Android 4.0+ and rooted, try "Greenify" which I developed.

You can safely hibernate any app you do not want it to run stealthily (thus eat your memory, battery and slow down your device) when you are not actively using it, while still keep it fully functional when you explictly run it, either from launcher or by sharing anything with it.


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