Why Android Kills Background Apps, and How to Stop It (2026)

Your notification light stopped glowing, your filter quietly switched off, or an app's permission is off again when you never touched it. In almost every case the phone closed the app in the background to save battery. This guide explains what is going on, the fixes that work on any Android phone, and where to find the guide for your brand.

Why does Android close apps in the background?

Android has its own battery rules. When the screen is off and the phone is still, Doze batches background work into short windows. Apps you rarely open are put in lower standby buckets that run less often. Each app also has a battery setting, usually Optimized by default, that lets Android hold it back. The Android developer documentation on Doze and App Standby describes these limits.

Many phone makers then add their own layer on top. Samsung puts apps to sleep, Xiaomi blocks apps from starting in the background unless you allow autostart, and OnePlus, OPPO, realme, vivo and Honor all have battery managers that can freeze or close apps once the screen goes dark. These are the settings dontkillmyapp.com tracks brand by brand, and they are why the same app can run perfectly on a Pixel and stop every night on another phone.

Why do notifications, lights and filters stop working?

Some apps only matter while they keep running. Three kinds suffer most:

Apps that only need to show notifications usually recover on their own, because Android wakes them when a message arrives. Apps that draw, filter or listen all the time cannot, so they are the ones that look broken.

Why is the accessibility switch off after a force-stop?

This is the part that confuses most people. When an app is force-stopped, Android switches off its accessibility service. That is not a bug of one brand. It happens on stock Android too, and it happens whether the stop came from you pressing Force stop, a cleaner app or the phone maker's battery manager.

The notification listener behaves differently. It survives a force-stop and Android reconnects it later, so the app can still see notifications arrive while its accessibility service, the part that draws the light, stays off. That is why a notification light can look half alive: notification access is still on, the light is not.

An app cannot turn its own accessibility service back on. Only you can, in Settings. So the goal is two things: make force-stops rarer, and know how to recover fast when one happens anyway.

How do I keep an app running on any Android phone?

These steps work on most phones. Your brand may have extra switches, covered in the guides further down.

1. Set battery use to Unrestricted. Open Settings > Apps > the app > App battery usage (on some phones just Battery) and choose Unrestricted. On Android 15 and newer you may first need to turn on Allow background usage.
2. Turn off Pause app activity if unused. It sits on the same app info screen. On some phones it is called Remove permissions if app is unused. Left on, it can strip permissions from an app that works quietly in the background.
3. Lock the app in recent apps. Open recents, then long-press the app's card or tap its icon and choose Lock or Keep open. A locked app is skipped by Clear all.
4. Turn on the app's own keep-running option if it has one. Many apps offer a foreground service with a small ongoing notification. In AuraDisplay it is Keep AuraDisplay Running in the app's settings. It helps a lot, but it is not armour.
5. Skip cleaner and booster apps. Their "clean" often means force-stop, which is the one action that switches accessibility off.
6. Keep heavy power saving modes off when you need the app, or check whether your phone lets you exempt apps from them.

For a filter that uses a VPN, also look for Always-on VPN in your phone's VPN settings (usually Settings > Network & internet > VPN, then the gear next to the app). Android then reconnects the VPN by itself. The wording differs by brand. If you only need tracker blocking without a VPN at all, Private DNS keeps working with no app running, which our guide to blocking trackers without a VPN explains.

If the light or the app's switch is off again

After a force-stop you have to turn the accessibility service back on by hand:

1. Open Settings > Accessibility.
2. Tap Installed apps (also called Downloaded apps or Installed services, depending on the phone).
3. Tap the app and switch it on, then confirm.

AuraDisplay watches for this. Since version 3.5.4, when Android switches its accessibility access off, it posts a notification saying so, usually with a Turn back on button that opens the right screen. Allow AuraDisplay to post notifications, or that warning cannot reach you. Once the light is back, it suggests the settings for your phone that make the next stop less likely.

If it keeps happening every day or two, the phone maker's battery manager is the likely cause. Work through your brand's guide below.

Which guide do I need for my phone?

Pixel and other phones close to stock Android only need the general steps above. On a Pixel 11 Pro, the HiLight ring has its own setup quirks, covered in using HiLight for notifications.

What can a keep-alive setting not do?

No setting makes an app immortal. A foreground service raises the app's priority, and the battery settings above remove most reasons to close it, but some battery managers still force-stop apps that are set up correctly. Samsung Device Care is a known example. Low memory can also end any app on any phone. The honest plan is to make stops rare, then recover in a few taps when one happens.

Sources

• Android Developers: Optimize for Doze and App Standby
• Don't kill my app!
• Samsung: Sleeping apps on your Galaxy device