Tips to make Apps and games more stable, run faster and not crash in Google Android

Sometimes, Apps and games crash, freeze, and stop working  in Google Android, but you can try some simple tasks to make them more stable, freeze less, run more stable, and not crash as much.

Restarting your phone, and tablet by holding down the power button, and  powering it off than turning it on again may make your apps run faster if you have a lot of apps running in the background.

You can also exit or log out of your apps like web browsers, social networking apps, and games which will release some RAM.

Some apps and games, let you change the video quality settings in the app, so it uses less RAM, CPU, and video resources on your phone, and tablet. By using a lower quality setting, your app would freeze, and not slow down as much.

Antivirus Apps, Widgets, Social networking, and system utility apps which are always running in the background could be the cause of your slow down on your phone or tablet especially if you only have 256MB of RAM, and a 800 MHz CPU found on many older phones and tablets.

Turning off Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi, 3G/4G  data, GPS, location awareness, automatic updates for Apps in Google Play, syncing, and other features which your phone and tablet come with built-into the phone may help increase its performance since less background apps are running in the background of Android.

Also, turning off notification pop-ups for apps by going to settings than tapping on apps in the settings menu in Android, and clicking on each individual app to uncheck the notifications may make your tablet slightly faster since notifications popping up in the notifications task bar are not always popping up when you use your tablet.

Some apps, let you disable notifications from within the app settings when you open the app. You can disable App notification in the App properties page which you can get to by going to Android settings> Apps > tap on app you want to disable notifications, and uncheck the “Show Notifications” checkbox. Lastly, tap on the OK button on the Show Notifications Window which will show up.

I recommend using an hibernation App called Greenify which is designed to hibernate running Apps, so they don’t run in the background anymore. It even auto-hibernate apps on non-rooted devices. Greenify made my older Asus Nexus 7 2012 tablet with Google Android 5.1.1 sometimes have over 600MB of Free available RAM to use, and more CPU cycles for running Apps, and Games. Greenify also saves your devices battery life because battery and hardware resource draining apps are hibernated. It is also very easy to un-hibernate apps by using the un-hibernate feature in Greenify. After using Greenify my Nexus 7 tablet does not freeze, or crash as much, and feels a lot faster.

Super Touch is an app which make games and apps run faster, and also improve the speed of list scrolling, zooming, and more. Super Touch is free and does not need Android to be rooted to work. This App improve your touchscreen’s performance by improving settings, and it also makes apps launch faster and more reliable.

Wipe Google Android Cache Partition for faster performance

Wiping the Google Android cache drive partition can sometimes make a Google Android device faster, and crash less. Wiping Google Android cache partition is safe to do, and won’t delete your personal files and apps as long as you don’t highlight the Recovery/Wipe Data option in Recovery mode. Wiping the Cache Partition deletes temporary files which are usually safe to delete in the Cache partition. I recommend charging your device before entering Recovery mode to prevent power loss in the middle of a wipe cache partition tasks.

Entering recovery mode usually involves you pressing the power button, and a combination of other buttons like power + volume down, or just volume down during power on. You may need to read your instruction manuals, or search the internet to learn how to enter your particular device’s Android recovery mode during boot. Not all devices have Recovery mode turned, so you may not be able to enter recovery mode on some devices made by different brands like Kobo, or lesser known brands. Sometimes, you can root your device, and install a custom ROM to get Recovery Mode on your device.

It is not too hard to do on most device. On my Google Nexus 7 2012 it is simple to enter recovery mode. I notice now my tablet performs faster, and apps do not crash and freeze as much as before.

How I Entered Recovery Mode on my Google Nexus 7 2012 tablet after turning it ON?

Before I can enter Recovery mode on my Google Nexus 7 2012 Asus Tablet, I need to turn off my tablet, and Turn it ON again. While it is powering on, and the Google Logo shows up on the screen, I need to quickly Press the power button and volume down button at the same time. When in Recovery mode, I need to Press the volume down button until the Big Arrow sign text changes to Recovery Mode, and I need to press the power button to enter the Recovery mode screen.

When I see a robot with a triangle ! caution sign, I need to press power button and Volume up button to unlock the recovery mode text menu. I next need to press the volume down button until “Wipe Cache Partition” is highlighted. When it is highlighted, I press the power button to begin wiping the cache partition. I can reboot Android by highlighting “reboot system now” by pressing the power button when my device is finish wiping the cache partition. After my device is rebooted, I can use it again like before, and experience fewer slowdown problems, freezes, and other problems.

Use a Task Killer app

Using a Task killer like Advance Task Killer can make your phone use less RAM, CPU resources, and battery life by killing background apps. Some task killers let you set it to kill tasks every 5 minutes or more, or when your device is locked, and the screen is off, so your device’s has fewer background apps running in the background when you use your device.

Force Stop Apps

You can also “Forced Stop” Apps in Google Androids’ Apps Setting section by going to Android Settings, and clicking on Apps where there are a list of Apps in different sections like Downloaded, and All. Downloaded Apps are Apps which you downloaded while All also includes Apps which came with your smartphone/tablet. Click on the App which you want to “Forced Stop”, and click “Forced Stop” on the top left to force stop it. There will be a pop up window which tells you the App which you are force stopping may misbehave. Click on the OK button on the pop up message to force stop the app. To find a list of apps to Force Stop in the Downloaded or All section of App settings, go to the Running Section of Apps. I notice Apps are less likely to restart after doing a Forced Stop compared to using Task Killers, or the Running section in Apps where stopping an app will not stop it from running, and the app restarts again after using a task killer app.

Uninstall or Reinstall Apps

Uninstalling and reinstalling the app may fix problems sometimes. If you are using an older version of the app, make sure to upgrade to the latest version since it could fix problems in older versions of the app like crashes. Clearing your web browser internet history, and cache can also save some space. In the App settings where you uninstall apps, you can usually safely clear the cache on each app to regain a few MBs of free space there are also a lot of free App Cache and SMS log privacy cleaners like Clean Master which work pretty well at cleaning junk files from Android, and doing other tasks like deleting empty folders, and uninstalling apps you no longer use.  Clean Master also has a Task Killer to kill Apps like Google Chrome, Games, and other background tasks to free up RAM, and CPU cycles, so the app or game you want to run has more free RAM and CPU cycles for running in Android.  Clean Master also has a Game Booster which kills task before starting your game for improving game load performance. There is also an App-Manager which makes it easy to disable pre-install bloatware apps with its App Manager, and uninstall apps which you installed yourself.

Best System Utility Apps to easily Clean up and speed up Google Android devices.

In my experience, once my device has 20% free space because most of my storage space is filled my device begins to slow down until I have at least 30-40% free RAM. Newer versions of Android like 4.3 also optimizes/TRIM Android’s flash memory SSD storage for faster charging, but Android mostly optimizes your drive when your device is idle, or charging, so leaving your device ON when it charges will optimize/TRIM your drive when you are not using it, and Android will also optimize your device if it is idle for one hour, and 80% battery power. Android only optimizes its drive once every 24 hours.

Uninstalling big apps which you rarely or never use may make Android faster. I read on forums and comments that users sometimes experience slow performance when their storage is almost full in Android.

You can also use a File Manager App , or connect your tablet or phone while it is ON to your computer to use Windows Explorer to manually delete files like video files, songs, documents, pictures, cache images, and text files which you no longer need, or cut them up to PC just in case you need them to restore at a latter time to save space on your Android storage drive.

Apps2SD

App2SD to Save internal storage if you use Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread or older can save you internal space by moving apps to external storage to save you space as well. I notice, when the internal storage is too full in Android 2.3, Google Android starts up very slow, and apps tend to crash more. In Google Android 4.2.2 Jellybean, Apps2SD apps don’t work since Jellybean just uses one partition.

You can also see if moving your Apps back to your internal memory if you moved an App or Game to a SD card will make an App more stable, and run faster. The internal storage drive on your device is usually a lot faster, more reliable, and higher quality than most budget MicroSD cards.

Some tablets and phones like the Samsung Galaxy Ace have a MicroSD card slot which can be used to store files like images, videos, documents, and music, but it can’t install apps. It is best to keep your media, work, and non-app files on a big 32GB MicroSD card like SanDisk 32 GB MicroSD Memory Card to have more room to install apps onto your Android device. Running games, and apps off of  a larger size 32GB or larger drive with a higher quality class 10 or faster speed rated MicroSD cards may make them run faster, and better if your device uses a low quality drive.

If the newest version of the app you downloaded from Google Play is unstable, download an older version which maybe available on the Amazon App Store, Getjar, 1Mobile,and other third party App stores not related to Google Play. You can sometimes find older versions of the APK installer on blogs, forums, or from friends and family, and ask if they can send you the APK file to install the app onto Android.

Unfortunately, some apps uses Online-only DRM/Digital Right Managements, or are online only, so if the server is down, your internet connection is slow the app won’t work, crash, or run slowly, so there is not much you can do, but try another internet Wi-Fi connection, or switch internet providers.

Turning on Developer mode to change Animation scale, and Background Process limit settings for faster performance!

There is Android Developer mode which you can easily unlock and turn on in Android 4.2-4.4+ without rooting your phone. Some of the developer options like disabling animations in Android, and limiting the number of background tasks/apps could make Android faster by using less RAM, and CPU. You need to first open your phone or tablet settings app, and scroll down to “About Phone/Tablet” to tap the About button. Scroll down the About page, and tap on the Build number for your device seven times or more to unlock developer mode. Now settings will have a developer mode where you can disable your animations, and make animations scales shorter to 0.5 which may make your device feel faster. When you scroll down to the bottom of the developer settings, there are Apps options for limiting the number of background tasks to 0-4 which can improve the performance of your device by limiting the number of background tasks which are running. By limiting your background tasks, your Android device will use less RAM, and CPU resources in the background of Android. Checking the “Don’t Keep Activities” checkbox which will destroy every activity as soon as the user leaves it may make your tablet faster. Once you restart your device, your background process limit will go back to the “Standard Limit”, so you need to change the setting to No Background process, or at most 1-4 processes. You may also need to recheck the Don’t keep activities checkbox again.

Note: I notice some apps like Google Play does not update and install apps when you set Background process limit to “No Background Process, 1, 2, 3, or 4 Background processes”. Gameloft Asphalt 8 racing game, and a few other apps crash after you launch them if you have “Don’t Keep Activities” checked.

Lastly, if none of these work, you can try to contact the app maker by writing a comment on his app page on Google Play, or writing him an e-mail on his official website, forum, or blog, and hope that he fixes his app soon. Also, tell him what version of Android you are using, and what phone or tablet you are using to use his app.

Buying a more popular and powerful Google Android smartphone like the Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge or tablet like the Nvidia Shield Gaming Tablet with a powerful Tegra K1 processor and graphics, 2GB of RAM, and fast storage chip can run all current games, and apps very quickly even when other apps are open, and the video quality is set to its highest settings.

Picking a Nexus device like the Google Nexus 6 smartphone or Nexus 9 tablet are very fast as well. The best part about Google Nexus devices is that they come with the latest version of Google Android which may fix buges which are causing Android, apps, and your tablet or phone to crash. Nexus devices also use stock Android, so it does not come with third party apps, widgets, and launchers which may slow down Android, and make it less reliable. It is also supported by Google and Asus, so if you have problems, you can get help quickly by contacting Google or Asus, or waiting a few months for a fix when the latest version of Android becomes available first for Nexus devices instead of not getting updates, or waiting many months to years for a new Android update by the cell phone service provider, or the hardware maker for the phone or tablet.

Disable un-installable apps which come with your device

For the Nexus 7, and other Android 4.2.2 Jellybean and older devices it is possible to disable some bundled apps like Google Maps, YouTube, Currents, etc by going to the settings for Android than Apps, and clicking on the bundle app, and click disable. You can’t disable some apps like the launcher, but you can disable most bundled apps like Play music, Play Movies, Gallery, YouTube, Maps, e-mail, and more.  Sometimes you may need to disable an app twice to disable it from running since if you disable an app like maps, Android would ask you if you want to replace the app with the factory app, and you have to agree, or you can’t disable it, so you latter have to disable the factory/original app to disable it.

Disabling an app is not as good as uninstalling it since even if it is disable, the app still uses  MBs of storage space, but at least, it is no longer running in the background using up RAM, and CPU resources. If you want to uninstall factory/bundled apps, you would need to root your android device, and use a root uninstaller program to uninstall factory bundled pre-installed apps.

Changing and Optimizing your Launcher/Homescreen for faster performance!

If you do not use a Nexus device, you can install a 3rd Party launcher like GO Launcher EX which could make your homescreen, and device run faster since it does not have widgets, and too many features which can slow down your device like some third-party launchers from your cell phone or tablet company. Go Launcher also has a built-in task killer to kill tasks from running in your background.

I personally use Nova Launcher which I found in the Google Play App store, and it makes my Nexus 7 more customizable, and nicer without slowing it down. I like Nova Launcher more than the default launcher in Android Jellybean 4.2.2 because Nova Launcher has more customization, and features without slowing down Android.

Keyword Launcher is also a very fast running launcher for Google Android devices with less RAM, and a slower CPU. One of the best things about Keyword launcher is it is fast, and rarely crash even on slower Android devices. There are also no widgets, extra home screens, and extra features which can slow down Android,

Smart Launcher is also a very fast launcher which has a category based menu instead of an All Apps feature.

Doorways Launcher is a keyword text based launcher where you can launch apps by searching for them. It also has a dock at the bottom for docking apps shortcuts to it. It has no Widget support, and it uses very little RAM, and CPU resources. It is also very stable, and performs very fast without crashes.

Null Launcher is a launcher which is a launcher which does nothing, but displays the wallpaper or live wallpaper. It uses no RAM, or CPU resources according to the Running App section in Android. This Android launcher is good for users who use Apps like Slide Launcher (slide launcher claims to use no RAM, or CPU resources when it is not being used) which launch an app launcher by sliding your finger up from the home screen to show app short cuts, or you launch apps from a lockscreen launcher, or voice activated launcher. Google Android 5.0 now keeps your recent apps list even after you restart Android, so you can also use the recent apps section as a launcher, and use Null Launcher to save system resources to free up RAM, and CPU resources for games, and other apps.

Best Lightweight Homescreen Launchers for Android

Removing Widgets, and using a regular picture as your wallpaper in your homescreen could make Android not as slow, and more stable since less is running on your device.

Using a Lightweight keyboard App

Switching to a lightweight keyboard app which is just use for typing instead of using the default, or some third party keyboard apps for typing, voice to speech, swipe typing, and more fancy spell checkers, and word prediction would make your smartphone, or tablet faster because some lightweight keyboards use only 5-10MB of RAM instead of over 30MB of RAM. Having an extra 20-25MB of free RAM by switching to a low RAM usage keyboard would improve video frame rates for games, and make your apps, and games run faster if your device is constantly running out of RAM, or crashes because of not having enough RAM.

I like using Big Button Keyboard which usually use between 4-10 MB of RAM, and very little CPU resources in Google Android 5.0 on my Asus Google Nexus 7 2012 tablet. Its file size is under 1MB, so it uses very little storage space.  Flit swiping keyboard , and Classic Keyboard are two other lightweight keyboards which are very fast, and use very little system resources, and storage space on Android. There is also Null Keyboard which is an app which disable the Keyboard by replacing it with a blank keyboard app. Null is useful for Google Android game consoles/handhelds, Google Android laptops with a physical keyboard, or people who use a Bluetooth or USB keyboard with their smartphone or tablet for typing. Using Null would make apps run faster because there is no Keyboard app using up RAM, and CPU resources.

Using Custom ROMs and Rooting your device

If you are a very advance Google Android user, you can root your Android device, and flash CyanogenMod or other custom ROM onto your phone or tablet to replace Android with CyanogenMod which is a version of Android without the bloatware and other features and apps which you don’t want.

The main benefit of rooting is you can uninstall apps like Google Currents, YouTube, Google Maps, Magazines, Google Books, apps which are bundled by the cell phone company, etc which you don’t want or need, so you can regain space on your drive, and save RAM if they always run in the background when installed.

Once your device is rooted, you can also overclock it to make it a little bit faster by raising the speed of the CPU, RAM, and Video chip.

Warning: Overclocking your device may damage it if you raise the speed too high!

Rooting and flashing your Android device could break it, so rooting and flashing a new ROM onto your Android device can be risking, so it is best to learn how to root and flash online by searching YouTube, Google, and asking people on forums, blogs, and other places on how to root or flash before you begin.

You can also buy pre-rooted tablets with custom firmware like Cyanogenmod on eBay, and other online stores if rooting, and flashing your ROM is too advance for you to do. Smartphones like the Oppo OnePlus One comes with Cyanogenmod pre-installed on the smartphone, and the  Oppo OnePlus One is one of the best smartphones for gaming because of its faster CPU, and amount of RAM.

The Ouya which is a Google Android console does not come with bloatware, and only apps like a custom launcher needed to open and  run Google Android games, and apps, but none of the apps like social networking apps and media apps which can make using Android slower on slower devices.

If your phone or smartphone is overheating a lot, taking off your case if you use one, and playing your games and using your apps in a cooler room or in front of a small desk cooling fan may make your device slow down less because of thermal throttling which occurs when your device is overheating. Some devices slowdown the CPU and GPU video chip when it is overheating to prevent heat damage.