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How many services are running on your Android 11 device? Not apps, but services. What resource are those apps consuming and how long have they been running?

Practice you lot know how to reply those questions? If you're running Android ten or newer, you can actually access the information to reply those questions. Why would you need such information? Y'all might have found that your device is responding slowly. You could restart the phone, merely what if you lot could fix the problem without resorting to that measure? Yous could track downwardly the errant service and and then restart it, thereby avoiding a full reboot.

How do yous do that? Let me show y'all.

Encounter: Android 11: New features for business organization users (gratuitous PDF) (TechRepublic)

What you'll need

In order to view the running services, y'all'll need an Android device with at least version ten of the platform.

How to enable Programmer Options

The power to view running processes in Android is found in the Developer Options. In lodge to do that, open the Settings app and locate Nearly Phone. In the Nigh Phone department, locate Build Number (Figure A).

Effigy A

The Build Number of your device lists the date your version of Android was congenital.

Tap the Build Number entry seven times. Yous'll be warned when you get close (Figure B).

Figure B

Only four taps left until Developer Options is enabled on my Samsung Milky way exam device.

With Developer Options enabled, y'all're now able to view the running services.

How to view the running services on your device

Get back to the Settings app and locate Programmer Options. For example, on the vanilla release of Android running on my Google Pixel five, Developer Options is in Settings | System | Avant-garde. If it's not on your phone, you can e'er search settings for Developer Options. Once you find Developer Options, tap the entry. In the resulting screen, you should see Running Services listed (Effigy C).

Effigy C

The Running Services entry in Developer Options.

Tap Running Services to open up the app, where you'll see a listing of all currently running services (Figure D).

Figure D

A list of all running processes on my Google Pixel five.

If yous tap whatever one of those running services, the entry will open where it tin be stopped and restarted. If yous see any of those apps consuming a suspiciously large corporeality of retentiveness, yous might want to stop and restart information technology.

Do, still, be careful. If you end a crucial service the device might fail to operate properly (and you'll wind upwardly having to reboot anyhow). Even with that caveat, having the power to view running services is a good tool for anyone who likes to troubleshoot their Android devices with more than just the standard apps and options. This is also a great style for you lot to examination your in-business firm apps that run equally background services on Android.

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