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How to Close Apps on the Samsung Galaxy S6

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With a beautiful new design and powerful 8-core processor the Samsung Galaxy S6 is one of the best and fastest smartphones on the planet. It’s capable of multi-tasking and opening a wide array of apps, even two at the same time with multi-window mode. However, there will still be times users will want to close apps on the Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge, and below we’ll explain how to do it.

Doing something as simple as clearing or closing unused apps may seem very generic and simple for average users, but first time smartphone owners users switching from the iPhone will need to know how to perform such a task on their new Galaxy S6.

Read: How to Reset a Frozen Galaxy S6

Now that the Galaxy S6 has been available for nearly two months we’ve been getting a lot of questions, and one is about closing unused apps. Closing and clearing apps on the Galaxy S6 to improve performance and battery life is extremely easy, so read on for the simple instructions.

Galaxy S6-itunes

Samsung’s phone has a fast 8-core processor and 3GB of RAM that can handle almost anything, but we’ll go over how just in case. The general rule of thumb on Android is to let the operating system manage your memory. That said, there are still times a user may want to clear apps from memory that aren’t being used.

Google’s Android OS does an excellent job managing apps and multi-tasking unlike any other operating system by putting apps in a low-power state ready to be called into action when needed, and saving battery the rest of the time. However, many users still opt to close apps manually and here’s how to do it on the Galaxy S6.

Instructions

Clearing apps out of memory or the multi-tasking  (recent apps) menu on the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is extremely easy, but may be different with than previous Galaxy devices. There’s a dedicated button for all your recent apps, and a single clear all button to make it all very easy for the end user.

Simply tap the overlapping rectangle-like button to the left of the dedicated hardware home button. This is the multi-tasking menu key that brings up all currently used and running apps. For those that didn’t know, switching from Facebook to Gmail, then to the browser, and back to Facebook is extremely fast and efficient with this menu. However, this is also where a quick swipe will close and kill apps.

S6-close apps

Once you tap the button to the left of the home key you’ll see what is pictured above. This is the recent apps menu. It’s a good idea to leave things like phone, messages, or even the browser in here, especially if you use these often. Clearing the SMS text app only means it will need to restart on your next message, wasting battery and CPU cycles. This same rule applies to all apps, so only close the ones you won’t be needing anymore.

A simple swipe of your finger on each box will swipe them away, and instantly close the app. Any saved progress or website you may be on will have to reload next time you use that specific application. The image above shows the menu, and us swiping to close the YouTube app. That’s all you have to do to close apps on the Galaxy S6.

S6-closeall

However, sometimes a user may want to simply clear everything all at once. Again, this is not recommended as the OS does a great job keeping most apps in a low power state. If so, just tap the new “Close all” button at the bottom, which will wipe out every app currently in system memory. A good time for this may be while at work and you won’t be on your phone, before bed, or while driving.

We’d recommend only clearing apps that you won’t be needing, or apps that are system intensive. Something like YouTube, Google Maps (or navigation are a big one) and even Netflix. As they can be killed to preserve battery. In general clearing apps is rarely needed on Android devices, especially ones as powerful and efficient as the Galaxy S6, but each user can do as they please based on their own needs.

Read: 5 Best Galaxy S6 Wallet Cases

Killing all of your apps could end up slowing down the phone, as it will need to reboot certain apps as they are called, and in the end lower battery life. So again, only clear what’s necessary, and generally this menu isn’t as needed as most think. For some reason Samsung removed the menu key in favor of it, but for those who’d like better control, now you have it.

In the end only close apps you won’t be using for the foreseeable future. Users claim all types of different results for clearing apps throughout the day and using the task manager, but use it wisely and feel free to try it yourself today.

14 Comments

14 Comments

  1. Bexley Fascist

    06/12/2015 at 3:32 pm

    This procedure does not actually close apps, it just removes them from the list of recent apps. There used to be a task manager to kill apps and reduce RAM utilisation; this no longer appears to be available

    • Steve

      06/22/2015 at 12:27 pm

      Agreed. With Active Applications = 0, my RAM is still almost completely gone. My phone burns battery life faster and runs hot :( I disabled my google play services for a couple of weeks and my battery life was doubled or even tripled. Of course, I could not run a few apps (i.e. YouTube) and I got errors all day long, but really why must these phones run processes all day long that make owning an android unnecessarily painful?

  2. Derrick

    07/04/2015 at 8:47 pm

    I have the new Galaxy s6 and I was not aware that some or all apps that are on this phone are always running even when I am not using them, so of course I wondered why my bill was so high I was told I have lots of apps that are running in the background even if I never use them. so I asked a rep could he help me to disable the ones I don’t use or the ones the phone don’t need to work properly. his answer was NO

  3. Daniel

    07/07/2015 at 10:02 pm

    Use Clean Master app to remove your apps and those from memory.

  4. Rob

    10/26/2015 at 5:35 am

    A word solver apo says you have to go to menu and then exit to exit the app. The recent app closer does not quit this app. Any help ?

  5. Jim

    11/19/2015 at 7:49 pm

    This was written by a fool. The apps still run in the background when you close on that screen. I feel like android are taking control away from the users on a much more serious level now. It doesn’t actually close the apps they are still running.

  6. Jessica

    12/17/2015 at 5:22 pm

    I close all my apps after each use, especially at night before I go to bed. Including Facebook. Yet every morning I get a msg from someone asking me why I was up in the middle of the night, as they assume I’m active on FB. So clearly the apps don’t get shut down. I’m also showing at any given time during the course of a day that I have 40 to 50 background apps running which is impossible bc I only use maybe 5 apps so I don’t know when and why all these other apps are starting up. Extremely annoying and getting more and more frequent.

    • John Rayer

      01/02/2016 at 4:53 pm

      Jessica, I’m constantly having the same problem. My phone is overheating and battery draining. I open CleanMaster to see what’s up and like 25 apps have to be hibernated every couple hours, when I only ran like 2 or 3 all day. No luck google-ing so time to head to Samsung.com.

      • Jessica

        01/02/2016 at 5:29 pm

        Thank you John, good to know I’m not crazy! I will have to find someone to help me figure this out bc it’s a waste of my time to having to remove junk and hibernate apps several times a day. Good luck to us both! : )

  7. Myrna Loy (@Myrnaloy_artist)

    03/17/2016 at 7:23 am

    Interesting discussion. I was told my data is being eaten up by open apps. If by closing them they are still running I am not sure how I can reduce how much data I use. Thanks for the heads up guys.

  8. Agyeiwaa

    03/23/2016 at 10:09 am

    Like you all i also had the same problem and didnt know how to end apps that are running in the background on my s6 edge.the button next to the home button that clears recently opened app does not stop the app running.that just closes the recently opened app. But if you want to end the app running in the background follow this easy instruction that I found out today: go to SMART MANAGER, then click on RAM, then chose the running app that you want to end and press END. Or you can press END ALL.. that’s how I did mine

  9. Jessica

    03/23/2016 at 12:13 pm

    Thank you, I will give that a go as I’m sure everyone else here will. I’ve been literally restarting my phone now several times a day in hopes of getting rid of the running apps. My phone bill has been about $10—15 higher than it should be and the only explanation is background apps running. I hope this is the solution, thanks again!

  10. Mary

    03/29/2016 at 2:25 pm

    Ok how do you find Smart Manager I have searched and cannot find it to go to RAM to close the running apps on my Samsung S6

  11. Kerry

    05/20/2016 at 4:06 am

    I did the following to find out what apps were still running on my phone, What you’ll need to do is go to Settings > About Device and scroll down to Build number. Tap Build number a few times. You won’t get any response, but if you tap enough times, you’ll get a notification congratulating you on your promotion to Developer. Now head back to your Settings menu and you’ll see a new selection is available: Developer options! Access Developer options to see a whole slew of new toys to play with (but be careful messing around with these settings unless you know what you’re doing). From there, I selected “Running Services”. Hope this helps!

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