How to prevent Android OS from closing a background app for memory?

Question

I created an app that uses ~10MB of RAM. It seems that when I start other apps and my app is in the background, it sometimes closes. I suspect this is because Android OS closes background apps for RAM management purposes (Phone have 1024MB of total RAM).

Is there any way that I can keep my app always running in the background programmatically or otherwise?

Answer 1

You cant keep your app alive in the background over the wishes of the OS. The best thing you can do is save and restore the state of your activities/fragments/views etc.

Recreating an Activity

static final String STATE_SCORE = "playerScore";
static final String STATE_LEVEL = "playerLevel";
...

//saving
@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    // Save the user's current game state
    savedInstanceState.putInt(STATE_SCORE, mCurrentScore);
    savedInstanceState.putInt(STATE_LEVEL, mCurrentLevel);

    // Always call the superclass so it can save the view hierarchy state
    super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
}

//restoring
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // Always call the superclass first

    // Check whether we're recreating a previously destroyed instance
    if (savedInstanceState != null) {
        // Restore value of members from saved state
        mCurrentScore = savedInstanceState.getInt(STATE_SCORE);
        mCurrentLevel = savedInstanceState.getInt(STATE_LEVEL);
    } else {
        // Probably initialize members with default values for a new instance
    }
    ...

}

Answer 2

Use Service to run in Background.

Read more at Run Background Service.