I think we’ve reached a point where you don’t really need to upgrade your smartphone every year or two. My Google Pixel 9 Pro from 2024 is still going strong, and unless the upgrades are significant, I don’t see myself moving to the Pixel 11 Pro either.
However, the downside of holding on to your phone for longer is that it slowly turns into a bit of a junkyard. Over time, you keep installing apps you need, and unlike earlier, when switching phones meant starting fresh, everything just piles up. At this point, I have well over 100 apps on my phone.
The problem with that is that many of these apps keep running in the background, using RAM and system resources even when you’re not actively using them. That can lead to your phone feeling slower, more jittery, or just not as smooth as it used to be.
Android has a hidden setting that lets you see exactly how much memory each app is using. It makes it much easier to figure out which apps are worth keeping and which ones are just sitting there consuming resources and slowing down your phone.
My phone felt due for an upgrade until I changed these settings
I didn’t realize how much these features were affecting my phone
The feature is hidden by default, but easy to enable from your phone settings
Before you can check this, you’ll need to enable Developer Options on your device, which is probably why you haven’t come across this setting before.
To enable Developer Options, go to the Settings app on your phone, then go to the About Phone section. From there, tap the Build number seven times. After a few taps, you’ll see a message saying “Developer options have been enabled.”
After that’s done, go back to System settings and open Developer Options. Near the top, you’ll find a Memory section. On some devices, especially Google Pixel phones, memory usage profiling might not be enabled by default, so you may need to turn it on and restart your device to access it.
What the memory usage stats actually mean on this page
It shows which apps are actively using RAM and how often they run
Inside the Memory section, you’ll see how much RAM your phone has, how much is being used on average, and an overview of overall performance.
However, if you want to see exactly which apps are using your memory, tap the Memory used by apps option. This section lists apps based on how much RAM they’ve used over the past three hours by default.
At the top, you’ll see a drop-down menu where you can switch between time frames, like three hours, six hours, 12 hours, or one day. In my opinion, setting it to 12 hours or one day gives you a much better idea of which apps consistently use the most memory throughout the day.
In most cases, you’ll see Android OS taking up the most RAM, and that’s completely normal. The system itself runs several background processes, and all of that gets grouped under the Android OS.
What you really want to look out for are third-party apps using more RAM than expected. You can tap any app to check details like its average and peak memory usage.
For example, I don’t have a Pixel Watch paired with my Pixel 9 Pro right now, but the Pixel Watch app and Fitbit app together were using around 250MB of RAM in the background. That’s a lot for something I’m not even using.
If you notice similar apps on your phone, you can head into their info page and use the three-dot menu to force stop them if needed.
That said, it’s worth remembering that RAM being used isn’t always a bad thing.
Android is designed to use available RAM to keep apps ready in the background, so it doesn’t necessarily mean your phone is wasting resources. It’s more about identifying what’s actually unnecessary.
However, if you spot an app that you don’t really use but is still occupying a lot of memory, you can stop it from this menu. Alternatively, I’d recommend uninstalling it altogether.
Force stopping only works temporarily, since the app will start using memory again the next time you open it. If you don’t use that app anymore, uninstalling it completely will ensure it doesn’t use any RAM moving forward.
The secret Android setting that makes me feel like I just bought a new phone
It gives a developer many options
Clearing Android’s Recent menu won’t help
If you think the apps in your Recents menu are the only ones using your phone’s resources and closing them will fix everything, that’s not really true.
Those apps are just the ones currently active, but many Android apps continue to run background processes that you don’t see in Recents or on your screen.
That’s exactly why this feature shows you the average memory usage over the past few hours, giving you a clearer picture of what’s actually using RAM behind the scenes.
On the whole, this process should help you spot the apps that are using more memory on your phone than they actually need. It gives you a clearer idea of what’s running in the background and what’s worth keeping around.
Additionally, if you feel your phone is slowing down or the battery is draining faster than usual, there are steps you can take to optimize your Android phone and help it last longer.
