• General
  • App battery usage - Restricted, how it works?

I'm trying to find out how the Restricted works and how can I really prevent apps from running when not needed.
My recent observations/test so far:

  • When set Spotify to Restricted and put it in the background it doesn't stop immediately, but let's say after 3-4 min. I guess this is normal despite being a bit off from my expectations.

  • Most of the apps I put in restricted battery mode but despite that, I get notifications from them without opening/running them. Today I was surprised when Skype started ringing on my phone simultaneously with my laptop when I was expecting calls from my parents. I intentionally did set Skype battery mode to restricted and ensured Skype is not allowed in "Alarms and reminders" under "Special app access". Why then Skype was running in the background and how I can prevent such with other apps?

    Oggyo The only way to really prevent an app from running in the background is to disable the app when you're not using it and enabling it again when you want to use it. Unfortunately, this can become tedious. On other non-GOS devices, I used various app managers that required root access to manage disabled apps. One of them I used was Disabler on F-Droid.

    The other way is to force Doze to run sooner. I have tried two apps that do this. One is Naptime and the other is Comatose. To use, you will need to issue an ADB command to allow Naptime and Comatose to do their thing. You should only use one of these apps though and not at the same time. I use Comatose on GOS with the extreme profile setting due to its simplicity. You can find out more about Comatose's profiles here. I know GOS generally prefers not to issue ADB commands to apps, but I do so because I'm a power user.

    HTH!

      brambler
      Thank you for the tidy and informative response.
      Yeah, with my previous phone I used similar apps that required root and/or some aggressive app killing. But it was on Android 9, so I was under impression that the recent Android versions (12/13) are more user and privacy-focused, and such kinds of controls are already sorted out :)
      Anyway, again thanks for the good ideas.