How To Close Apps On Galaxy S8 And Galaxy S8 Plus

The problem with smartphones like Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus is that they can do all kinds of smart things without you even knowing it. If it seems to you like the battery is draining too fast or the device is moving too slow, perhaps it’s the apps running in the background that you should check.

That’s right, with these smartphones, what you see on the screen is not necessarily the only thing going on in there and many unused apps could run in the background, thus affecting the overall performances of the phone.

If you’ve chosen it for the looks – and we all know that the fancy water-resistant design and the sassy aluminum and glass body have the power to make people give up on Windows or iPhone devices – the time has come to get to know your new smartphone better and control it as such.

What you should know about closing apps on Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus:

• To find out what recently used apps weren’t properly closed and are still active, you need to tap on a dedicated button;

• It is the button sitting at the left of the Home button, a soft key known as the multitasking capacitive button;

• That button has an overlapping rectangle symbol and when you tap on it, you will see all the apps running in the background, displayed in the Rolodex-style card view;

• If you want to switch from one app to another (Facebook, Gmail, YouTube or whatever else you have in there) suffices to tap on the card symbol of the dedicated app;

• If you want to close a particular app, suffices to swipe it right or left and as it disappears from this menu, it automatically turns off for good;

• To turn off all those apps automatically, you can use the Close All button – it is a large button sitting at the bottom of the display, underneath the Rolodex-style card view;

• Even though closing apps from this menu is very easy, the information stored on it won’t go away and you can resume from where you left the next time when you will launch the app – for instance, if you have closed the Internet browser, next time when you open it, the app will display the same page where you were last time.

These were the basics on how to control the apps that run in the background of your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus. As tempting as it might be to shut them off all at the same time, you will have to think again the next time when you plan on hitting the Close All button.

That’s because some apps are more necessary than others and will automatically run when a particular process is triggered. For instance, you receive text messages quite often. If you prevent the Messages app or any other third-party messaging app from running in the background on a regular base, the first time when you will receive a message the app will turn on automatically. But the problem is that it consumes a set of resources to turn on and a different set of resources to resume from running in the background.

Otherwise said, if you make a habit of closing apps that your smartphone uses on a regular base – Messages, Phone, Internet etc. – you will be wasting the battery and the CPU cycles. Generally, it is advisable to stop the apps that consume your battery and that you don’t really need, such as Navigation, Google Maps or gaming apps.

Just to recap, suffices to tap on the left soft key of your smartphone and you will see a list of all the apps currently running. You can turn them off one by one, with one swipe, or turn them off all at the same time, in which case you will lose all the data. At night, when there aren’t too many things supposed to happen on your smartphone, you could close all the apps. But during the day, when you are using your phone quite a lot, it is more advisable to manually close only the apps that consume most of your battery.

Whether you want to remove or to close an app from the recent apps menu, the process is simple, as you might have noticed. At the same time, it could be a tad different from what you knew, based on your experience with other devices. Nevertheless, now you know how to close the apps running in the background of your new Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus.