Where has the "close all apps" button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

[AC Question]

I upgraded to Marshmallow over the weekend and the "close all" button is not included in Marshmallow. When I have a list of apps open I need to close them one by one.

Is it not possible to close all open apps in one go?

Pat

 

[Crashdamage]

I haven't gotten Marshmallow yet so I can't exactly answer your question. I'm not aware there was one in Lollipop. But no 'Close all apps' is needed. Android handles that for you very efficiently.

Please see this and the links in it:

http://androidforums.com/index.php?posts/7114446

Android since v1.0. Linux since 2001

 

[sh0nuff]

I can't talk for OP, but I believe there's still some value in a close all button, especially since the recent apps button is so prevalent on every version of Android on recent memory.

Currently the recent apps button in Marshmallow is pretty useless as it contains dozens of old apps, which even persist after a reboot.

I've always used the recent apps as a was to not only switch between my favorite apps, but also to force close the odd app that's doesn't seem to be properly managed by Android. Whisper is one such example, it needs to be swiped out of the recents and relaunched to address a few bugs that cannot be fixed any other way.

 

[nullsteph]

I end up with 100s of open app cards, and its completely unmanageable. Essentially, the 'recent apps' button is useless and consums memory.

 

[Crashdamage]

I end up with 100s of open app cards, and its completely unmanageable. Essentially, the 'recent apps' button is useless and consums memory.

You can't have 100s of cards in Recent. It's limited to 50 and not changeable, though it probably should have that option.

I find the Recent button to be very handy and use it a lot. A time and tap saver. But everyone has their own way of getting stuff done.

The Recent feature uses very little memory. Certainly nothing to worry about.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.

 

[benleonheart]

Android is designed to handle all of it efficiently.
You don't "need" a clear recents button; it's just a placebo effect.
But then again, if you really do? try a custom rom. Cataclysm Rom is nice.

 

[SGolightly]

Android is designed to handle all of it efficiently.
You don't "need" a clear recents button; it's just a placebo effect.
But then again, if you really do? try a custom rom. Cataclysm Rom is nice.

It's not about resources, it's about clutter, especially since Chrome now defaults to putting tabs as individual cards, which is great once you get used to it. I don't want to scroll through a list of 50 apps to hopefully spot what I want at a glance. It's very nice to start from scratch every so often. I try to keep the list of recents small, but it's not always possible.

I don't want a custom ROM. I purchased a Moto X Play because I wanted a rather vanilla experience.

 

[Crashdamage]

Re: Where has the "close all apps" button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

This explains why a 'Close all' button is not a good idea:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?p=4655557

Chrome can be changed to the old style tabbed behavior in the settings.

Why worry about keeping Recent short? If you only want to deal and 10 or so, just flip the first 10. No one is forcing you to go through all 50.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.

 

[Buddy1969]

In theory, that all looks good. In praxis it is a fact, that i.e. my Nexus 5 (but also my work Samsung S5) stutters and lags a lot sometimes. After deleting the app cache, the problem is solved most of the times. Funny about that is, that I don't use any exotic apps. Hangouts, Gmail, Chrome, Google Now and Facebook are the ones I use all the time.
So according to the description in your link, my Nexus should run smoothly ... which it doesn't. It's app cache needs to be cleaned now and then and I found out it is good practice to format the cache partition after an OTA update. The "android runs perfectly on it's own" myth is IMHO busted...

 

[Crashdamage]

Re: Where has the "close all apps" button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

Which app is it that you say you have to clear? You didn't name the app.

Your Nexus 5 absolutely should run smoothly without doing any cache cleaning or task killing. I had a Nexus 5, now passed along to my son, who is having zero problems. Caches files have never been touched, but of course it was given a factory reset when passed along to a new owner.

I'm typing this on a Nexus 4 running Marshmallow fast and stable with zero maintenance since doing the mods.

In our family we also have a 2013 Nexus 7 and 3 Nexus 6's. All are running stock 6.0.1 from OTA updates with zero problems. None has ever had a factory reset or anything done to caches.

I've used Android since the original G1 running Android 1.0. In all that time I've never needed to do a factory reset and only had to clear a cache 2-3 times, and then an app cache only, never the cache partition. I don't fool with caches for the life of a device.

If cache maintenance is necessary, how do you explain all of our devices running perfectly with zero attention to caches? Well, the explanation is simple...nothing needs to be done to caches, it is not necessary.

Unless...you have a problem. And if you are having a problem, repeatedly clearing caches is just slapping Band-Aids on a wound that never heals. IOW if you have a cache problem, find the cause and fix it instead of just doing something over and over that does nothing to cure the disease. You should never have to give cache files a thought. If you do something is broken. Find out what and fix it.

So again, if your Nexus 5 has to be fiddled with caches or clearing RAM that absolutely is incorrect and you need to determine the cause and apply a fix.

Check out this post from Rukbat. He gets it:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?p=4952792

 

[Buddy1969]

I stated above, which apps I use (they are all on last Version, so no old apps).

The whole phone gets slugghish and laggy after a while (I stated this as well).
After clearing the app cache it goes back to normal.

It is fine for you, that you have no problem, but repeating this again and again doesn't solve anything.
As you are telling me about your Smartphone knowledge, rest assured, I am an old timer when it comes to PDAs and smartphones. I had my first Palm PDA in 1994 and since had most brands at least once. I also had most of the Treos as well as a Pre+ and a Pre3 as well as a HP Touchpad. I was one of the first here in Austria to have an XDA Smartphone with Windows Mobile on it. I had two iPhones and the Nexus 5 is my third Android smartphone.

So yes. I know a little bit about the matter. Thanks.

 

[jj14x]

In theory, that all looks good. In praxis it is a fact, that i.e. my Nexus 5 (but also my work Samsung S5) stutters and lags a lot sometimes. After deleting the app cache, the problem is solved most of the times.
...<snip>.... and I found out it is good practice to format the cache partition after an OTA update.

When you say "Delete app cache" - what exactly are you doing? Are you killing the running processes? Or are you going to settings/storage and deleting the "cached data"? Deleting the cached data is not going to improve your phone's performance, unless you are running really low on storage space.

Killing the running processes MAY temporarily make your phone seem "snappier" - because if your RAM is all filled up with running/cached processes (which in itself it not a bad thing), you are basically forcing all processes to be killed, instead of letting Android OS do its thing and swap processes in/out.

The only reason why it may make your phone seem temporarily snappier by killing processes is because of a memory leak that existed till one of the recent builds (I believe it existed even in the initial Marshmallow build). The reason I say temporarily is because those background processes that you killed will be resurrected by themselves pretty soon. And furthermore, when you launch an app that you killed, it will take slightly longer to launch (because it is no longer in RAM), and will consequently result in a slight increase in battery drain as well.

Wiping the cache partition after an update is a different thing - that forces the OS to rebuild the cache partition - I highly recommend that as well, so that it rebuilds based on latest files, rather than just based on updated files.

As you are telling me about your Smartphone knowledge, rest assured, I am an old timer when it comes to PDAs and smartphones. I had my first Palm PDA in 1994 and since had most brands at least once. I also had most of the Treos as well as a Pre+ and a Pre3 as well as a HP Touchpad. I was one of the first here in Austria to have an XDA Smartphone with Windows Mobile on it. I had two iPhones and the Nexus 5 is my third Android smartphone.

So yes. I know a little bit about the matter. Thanks.

Please understand that Android OS works VERY differently than Palm/WinMo/WebOS/iOS. I've used all of these as well, and with these, if I didn't kill the running apps, my phone would grind to a halt (well, except iOS, which would pretty much kill the app itself when I exited it).

I still have my N5 in the family (I moved to a N6). Yes, on my N6, the recents menu becomes cluttered after a while, and every now and then, I do go and clear it out (not because of any performance issues, but because it is hard to find what I need). But on the N5, the recents menu is never cleared (annoys me if I ever pick it up) - family just doesn't care about it - because it doesn't impact performance at all.

The recents menu is just showing you a thumbnail of the app. Android may have already cached the app itself, or killed the app if OS/apps needed memory - the entry for the app still remains in the recents menu. Swiping it away isn't freeing up any memory in that case.

To add to what Crashdamage said - if your Nexus 5 is getting slugging/laggy after a while, you should try to figure out the cause for that problem itself. What build are you on? Are you using a stock ROM? or a custom ROM? Have you ever performed a factory reset? Do you ever flash factory images? Or do you always take OTA?
Regarding apps - Hangouts, Gmail, Chrome, Google Now aren't going to cause laggy behavior (facebook - I don't know - I don't use that app - have heard that it causes wakelocks for some folks etc - perhaps).

Go to settings/memory and look at memory usage. How much is free? While you are there, tap on "Memory used by apps " and see what is hogging up your memory.

Edit: Your Samsung S5 - whole different animal. What I wrote above applies to your Nexus device - may not apply to your Samsung S5 - they alter the memory management (more aggressively kills active apps I believe, because touchwiz and their other apps take up so much of available memory)

 

[Buddy1969]

When you say "Delete app cache" - what exactly are you doing? Are you killing the running processes? Or are you going to settings/storage and deleting the "cached data"?

Both.

...and the Nexus 5 is my third Android smartphone.

Please understand that Android OS works VERY differently than Palm/WinMo/WebOS/iOS...

I do

If your Nexus 5 is getting slugging/laggy after a while, you should try to figure out the cause for that problem itself.
What build are you on?

Android 6.0.1
Kernel 3.4.0-g7717f76
Build MMB29S

Are you using a stock ROM? or a custom ROM?

Stock

Have you ever performed a factory reset?

Yes, after upgrade to 6.0

Do you ever flash factory images? Or do you always take OTA?

Always OTA

Regarding apps - Hangouts, Gmail, Chrome, Google Now aren't going to cause laggy behavior (facebook - I don't know - I don't use that app - have heard that it causes wakelocks for some folks etc - perhaps).

I know, thx

Go to settings/memory and look at memory usage. How much is free? While you are there, tap on "Memory used by apps " and see what is hogging up your memory.

1.3 GB = 70%.
I restarted the phone yesterday evening (about 10pm ish) and emptied the app cache at 5:30 morning, when I took it off the charger.
It is now 1:40 pm at my location and I have 130 MB app cache data in the internal storage space.

Edit: Your Samsung S5 - whole different animal. What I wrote above applies to your Nexus device - may not apply to your Samsung S5 - they alter the memory management (more aggressively kills active apps I believe, because touchwiz and their other apps take up so much of available memory)

Having had an SGS3 and SGS5, I am "healed" of the sickness called Samsung Galaxy Smartphone


Thanks for your Infos anyway!

PS, is there a tool that tells you
a) how much RAM an app allocated over time (graph)
b) how often an app has woken up the phone (I know the wakeup graph in settings/battery but that's for the whole phone and not a single app)
c) how much CPU time an app used over time (graph)
That would go a length to identify a culprit app.

 

[jj14x]

1.3 GB = 70%.
I restarted the phone yesterday evening (about 10pm ish) and emptied the app cache at 5:30 morning, when I took it off the charger.
It is now 1:40 pm at my location and I have 130 MB app cache data in the internal storage space.

The app cache is just the data that the app caches for faster lookup the next time. So, for example, the app cache for Chrome would contain the images that the browser had to download, say at target.com when you visited it. So, instead of deleting it out, it keeps it, assuming that you will visit target.com in the future, and it doesn't have to redownload those images. While app cache does take up some storage space, it is not going to impact your phone's performance.

If your phone is showing average memory use of 1.7GB, you still have about 1.2 GB of RAM available, so it doesn't look like your phone is running low on memory.

Settings/memory should show you RAM used by app - though not in a graph
To identify "bad" apps that cause wakelocks and battery drain, you can try GSAM battery monitor. It will also show CPU used by apps. If you are rooted, I believe it gives you some additional functionality.

(I haven't had to use GSAM battery monitor since Marshmallow was released)

 

[Crashdamage]

1.3 GB = 70%.
I restarted the phone yesterday evening (about 10pm ish) and emptied the app cache at 5:30 morning, when I took it off the charger.
It is now 1:40 pm at my location and I have 130 MB app cache data in the internal storage space.

So what? It simply doesn't matter. Forget about cache files. I don't touch them for the life of a device.

Having had an SGS3 and SGS5, I am "healed" of the sickness called Samsung Galaxy Smartphone

Agree on that. I never have and never will own a Samsung.

PS, is there a tool that tells you
a) how much RAM an app allocated over time (graph)
b) how often an app has woken up the phone (I know the wakeup graph in settings/battery but that's for the whole phone and not a single app)
c) how much CPU time an app used over time (graph)
That would go a length to identify a culprit app.

a. Android has Process Stats built-in:
Process Stats: Understanding How Your App Uses RAM | Android Developers Blog

Also see 'c' below.

b. I don't know, never cared.

C. Install System Panel:
https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ails?id=nextapp.systempanel.r1&token=y4h8RlYc

Please, read this:

Complete system analysis app to find lagging app - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

...and this about why killing apps is counterproductive to proper Android operation:

Anyone use battery doctor? - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

 

[Buddy1969]

Well, I refrained from deleting tasks and emptying the app cache today. I took it off the charger at about 5:40 am
I installed the systempanel from above link

It is 3 pm now. The whole phone is sluggish now. I had to charge it twice already. The systempanel tells me, that there was a lot of activity around midday (CPU high, app activities high etc). During this time I was in a meeting and had not laid hand on the phone. The "screen on" graph confirms this. The screen was off during this time.
In the "top apps" history list of the systempanel, the followings apps are displayed
1) System processes 5m45s 0.4%
2) Hangouts 2m45s 0.2%
3) Messenger 2m34s 0.2%
4) Facebook 1m30s 0.1%
5) SwiftKey Keyboard 1m7s 0.1%
6) System Panel 46s 0.1%
and a lot more that are 0% (Netflix et al...) which I actually never started or touched for a few days now.

Nothing looks worse for the wear. For me, none of this explains the beaviour of my phone.

 

[Crashdamage]

Re: Where has the &quot;close all apps&quot; button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

Hmmm...I don't see a problem either. Nothing ran more than a few minutes. And everything on the System Panel opening screen looks normal?

Let's get more information from System Panel. It's a terrific tool.

Set System Panel to start at boot.
Settings > Monitoring settings > Start at boot
Enable all the options under:
Settings > Overview screen preferences
Enable CPU plots and App CPU plots in Settings > Plot settings

Before going to bed reboot and leave the phone alone. This should show only what apps that auto-start do. Keep an eye on battery usage stats. Something is drawing power and using up system resources, causing the phone to get sluggish. It's just a matter of finding what.

A couple of questions...
Do you have any RAM boosters/optimizers, battery savers, cleaners, etc etc installed? Antivirus?

 

[Buddy1969]

Re: Where has the &quot;close all apps&quot; button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

... And everything on the System Panel opening screen looks normal?

Yup

Set System Panel to start at boot.
Settings > Monitoring settings > Start at boot
Enable all the options under:
Settings > Overview screen preferences
Enable CPU plots and App CPU plots in Settings > Plot settings

Already did that. Plot "history" shows that CPU Usage doesn't drop at night (but at night the phone is plugged in anyway) but always doodles around 30% even in the hours where "device usage" is zero.

Before going to bed reboot and leave the phone alone. This should show only what apps that auto-start do...

I'll try that and reboot tonight.

A couple of questions...
Do you have any RAM boosters/optimizers, battery savers, cleaners, etc etc installed? Antivirus?

I have Comodo running, but don't use it's System optimizer anymore (did with Kit Kat but no more since Lollipop and Marshmallow). The app doesn't show very high cpu or ram usage in System Panel (below 0,1 %).
I am using Comodo Internet Security on nearly all my devices at home (there's no Internet security for my Samsung smart TV). I got a CAT-5 home network and my Hardware Routers have firewalls as well as nearly every device @home. Security is mandatory for an IT geek like me

PS: what I could observe is, that the behaviour of my phone doesn't STAY sluggish. It comes and goes and comes again, even if I don't do anything about it. That's a new info for me. I will check if this is occurring at a certain time and if so, which program is using CPU more during that time, than on other occasions. Maybe I find a culprit that way.

 

[jj14x]

Re: Where has the &quot;close all apps&quot; button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

Try safe mode for a day and see if the problem persists. That will help narrow down whether the problem is with a 3rd party app, or not.

"Press and hold the power button for a few seconds until you are prompted to turn off your phone. Now, instead of tapping the power off, tap and hold Power off for a few seconds until your phone asks you to confirm that you want to enter safe mode. Tap OK, and your phone will restart into safe mode."

Note that this will not allow you to access any 3rd party app that you have installed on your phone (while in safe mode). I know, not convenient, but it will help narrow down the problem at least

 

[Crashdamage]

Re: Where has the &quot;close all apps&quot; button gone in the Nexus 5 in Marshmallow?

Try safe mode for a day and see if the problem persists. That will help narrow down whether the problem is with a 3rd party app, or not.

Note that this will not allow you to access any 3rd party app that you have installed on your phone (while in safe mode). I know, not convenient, but it will help narrow down the problem at least

Worth checking out safe mode to see what happens. But I think it almost a sure thing a 3rd party app is the problem. Question is which one? He should be able to track it down with the tools he has.

@Buddy1969: Really glad to see you're serious about finding and fixing the problem. You're learning a valuable lesson that might come in handy again down the road.
Comodo is probably doing you little or no good. At least so far it doesn't seem to be the problem. Regarding security, I wrote a post about it a while back:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...498-android-security-privacy.html#post4749114