Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 is one of the fastest and most powerful smartphones available today, and as a result users will have to use the S-Pen stylus to multitask and open a wide variety of apps or consume and create tons of content. With 3GB of RAM and plenty of processing power, you can run multiple apps at once, or even two apps on the screen at the same time, but some users will still want to close apps on their Note 4.
Doing something as easy as deleting or closing unused apps may seem too generic and simple to average users, but first-time smartphone owner or iPhone converts need to know how to perform such a task on their Note 4 device.
We get a lot of questions as millions of consumers own the Galaxy Note 4, and this is one of them. It is extremely easy to close and clear apps on the Galaxy Note 4 to improve performance and battery life, so read on to see exactly how to do it.
The general rule when it comes to Android is to let the operating system manage your memory, not to mention Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 has 3GB of RAM, so there’s no reason why it can’t open tons of apps at once. However, there are times when a user might want to delete unused apps from memory.
Google’s Android operating system does an excellent job of managing apps and multitasking unlike other operating systems by getting apps ready to take action when needed, and saves battery the rest of the time. Then you can multitask and switch between apps in seconds with the app switch button for a seamless experience. However, many users still prefer to close apps manually, and here’s how to do it.
Instructions
Clearing apps from memory or the multitasking menu on the Galaxy Note 4 is actually extremely easy and differs from some older devices like the Galaxy S3. Older Samsung devices, a long press on the dedicated home button brings up this menu, but it’s not done that way anymore. Now there’s a dedicated multitasking capacitive button to the left of your main home switch, and that’s where you start.
Simply tap the overlapping rectangle-like button to the left of the dedicated hardware home button. This is the multitasking menu key that brings up all currently used and running applications. For those who don’t know, switching from Gmail to YouTube, then browser and back to Gmail with this button is extremely fast and efficient. However, this is also where a quick swipe will close and kill apps.
The image above is what you’ll be greeted with when you tap the multitasking menu key showing all currently running apps. On the right, you can see that I closed that app by swiping the Google Play Store. It’s a good idea to leave things like phones, messages, and even browsers here, especially if you use them frequently. Deleting the SMS text app means it will only need to be restarted at your next message, wasting battery and CPU cycles. This same rule applies to all apps, so only turn off the ones you won’t need anymore. Things like Maps, Navigation or games.
A simple swipe of your finger on each box will swipe them away and instantly close the app. Any saved progress or the website you might be on will have to be reloaded the next time you use that app. The image above shows us swiping to clear the menu and something. That’s all, you’re done. It’s that simple to clear and close apps on Galaxy Note 4.
However, if you’re about to go to work and won’t be using your device or going to bed at night, you can choose to tap the bottom left button. It’s an X with three lines and a “close all” button. This will close every currently running app in the recent apps menu, leaving you with a blank page as shown above.
Then the circle pie button will take you to the task manager to see how the tasks or apps are behaving, how much battery they’re using, and what’s going on behind the scenes.
Closing all your apps can cause the phone to slow down as it will need to restart some apps as they are called and eventually the battery life will be reduced. Again, clean only what’s necessary and usually killing that menu and all apps isn’t as necessary as many users think.
