Remove app from recent apps programmatically

Question

I know that Activities can be declared in manifest as being excluded from recents with android:excludeFromRecents: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/activity-element.html#exclude

However, that's not what I'm looking for, I would like to know if there is a way to remove the app from recent apps programmatically

Answer 1

Yes, generally when you want to have special properties for an Activity when starting it you supply special flags to the Intent. In this case FLAG_ACTIVITY_EXCLUDE_FROM_RECENTS.

Updated:

If you need to hide the current already running activity, you might be able to use this flag in combination with FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP which would send the new Intent to the existing Activity. You'll have to think and perhaps experiment with what happens as the user moves around your stack though and whether that will make your app re-appear in the recent apps.

Answer 2

This can be done using the ActivityManager.AppTask functionality (starting in API 21)

    ActivityManager am = (ActivityManager)getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);     if(am != null) {         List<ActivityManager.AppTask> tasks = am.getAppTasks();         if (tasks != null && tasks.size() > 0) {             tasks.get(0).setExcludeFromRecents(true);         }     }