Keep Apps In Background

If you are struggling to multitask on a 4GB of RAM phone like the Samsung Galaxy A14 then this post is for you.

With Samsung's aggressive memory management on the Galaxy A14 and other phones that have low RAM, explicitly protecting your apps is essential.

Here is a step-by-step guide to confirm the most critical settings for your apps on your Samsung or on whatever phone you have that has Low RAM.

🛡️ Step 1: Disable Battery Optimization (Highest Priority)

This is the most powerful setting to prevent the Android OS from killing your apps for power-saving reasons. You need to do this for the apps you want to keep in the background

• Go to settings and click on Apps.
• Find and tap on whatever app you want to keep in the background.
• Scroll down and tap on Battery (or App Battery Usage).
• Select the Unrestricted option (or allow unrestricted background activity.)

🏵 Step 2: Check Advanced App Settings

​This is another layer of permission you need to check for the app you want to run in the background.

• ​Go to Settings --> Apps.
• ​Find and tap on the app you want kept in background.
• ​Tap Mobile data (or "Mobile data usage").
• ​Ensure "Allow background data usage" is ON.

🧩 Step 3: Make sure "Manage App if unused" is set to OFF.

This will help prevent the system from putting the app in a deep sleep or a sleeping state and it will help stop the system from removing the apps permissions and it will help from the system trying to stop the apps background activity

• Go to Settings and click on Apps.
• Find and tap on whatever app you want to keep in the background.
• Toggle "Manage App if unused" to OFF

🚫 Step 4: Exclude from Samsung's "Sleeping & Deep Sleeping Apps" Lists

This prevents Samsung's Device Care from automatically putting the apps to sleep because it perceives them as unused.

• Go to Settings and Find Battery.
• Tap on Background usage limits.
• Tap on Never sleeping apps.
• Tap the + sign, and select the apps you want. And then Tap Add.
  • Ensure neither app is listed under "Sleeping apps" or "Deep sleeping apps." If they are, remove them.

Optional: Toggle "Put unused apps to sleep" to OFF

⚙️ Step 5: Enable "Quick Switching Mode" (Via memory guardian & good guardians)

This setting optimizes Samsung's memory manager to prioritize keeping apps in a cached state for longer.

• Ensure you have downloaded and installed Good Guardians (from the Galaxy Store) and the Memory Guardian module within it.
• Open Good Guardians and click on memory Guardian.
• Look for a section or tab labeled "Customize" or "Memory management mode."
• Select Quick switching mode.

(This mode tells the system to keep more apps open in the background instead of prioritizing only the very top app.)

Note: If you for some reason can't find the Good Guardians App and the Memory Guardian App in the Galaxy store then go to the Google Play Store and install an app called "Fine Lock" open the app and click on "Memory Guardian" and it will help you install the APK for Memory Guardian.

🎗Step 6: Turn on RAM Plus (If you have this option)

This feature is designed to help your phone keep more apps opened in the background, especially on devices with limited physical RAM.

• Go to settings --> Device Care
• Tap on Memory
• Enable RAM Plus and set it to the lowest amount of GB such as 2GB (if apps still refresh in background then set it to the highest amount you have (4GB, 6GB, 8GB, etc)

👻 Step 7: Disable Child Process Restrictions (Developer Options)

This protects background components of the app from Android's more aggressive process-killing mechanisms.

• (If you haven't already) Go to Settings and click about phone then click software information and rapidly tap "Build number" 7 times to enable Developer options.

• Go back to Settings and click developer options (usually at the bottom).

• Scroll down.

• Find the setting "Disable child process restrictions" (or something similar).

• Toggle this setting ON.

Step 8 (Optional): Disable Suspend Execution For Cached Apps (Developer Options)

If this setting is "Disabled" the app is allowed to continue its execution even when it moves to the cached state. This is crucial for maintaining continuous Background Apps.

• (If you haven't already) Go to Settings and click about phone then click software information and rapidly tap "Build number" 7 times to enable Developer options.
• Go back to Settings and click developer options (usually at the bottom).
• Scroll down.
• Find the setting "Suspend Execution For Cached Apps" (or something similar).
• Toggle this setting Off.

Step 9 (Optional): Set Background Process Limit to at most 4 processes (Developer Options)

You are basically setting a hard cap on the number of cached apps that the operating system can hold in memory. This could possibly help keep your app you want kept in background.

• (If you haven't already) Go to Settings and click about phone then click software information and rapidly tap "Build number" 7 times to enable Developer options.
• Go back to Settings and click developer options (usually at the bottom).
• Scroll down.
• Find the setting "Background Process Limit" (or something similar).
• Put it to at most 4 processes

Step 10 (Optional): Turn off Adaptive Battery.

By disabling this feature, you remove the primary system mechanism that uses AI to detect "unused" apps and aggressively limit their background resource usage. This gives your apps ore freedom to run in the background, Just to let you know though this will drain your battery faster.

• Go to Settings and click on Battery.
• Tap on Background usage limits.
• Click the 3 dots on the top right.
• Toggle OFF Adaptive Battery.

Step 11 (Optional): Install "Kill Apps" from the Google Play store.

This will force stop all apps that are running in the background (you can make an exception list to tell the app to not force stop certain apps)

Step 12 (Optional): Lock the App in Recents (Samsung Specific)

This feature tells the system to treat the app as "active" and prevent the 'Clear All' button from closing it.

• Open the app you want kept in the background.
• Tap the Recents button (the square or three vertical lines at the bottom of your screen) to see the list of open apps.
• Find your apps card. Tap the app icon (the logo) at the top of the card.
• From the menu that appears, tap "Keep open" or the Lock icon.
  • A small lock icon will appear on the app card, indicating it is locked in memory.

By implementing all these steps, especially the "Unrestricted" battery setting and exclusion from the "Sleeping Apps" lists, you have done everything possible in the Android and Samsung settings to protect your apps from being closed in the background making multi tasking way smoother.