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Here’s a quick how-to tutorial. This tutorial will show you how to kill running applications on your Apple or Android phone or tablet device. Let’s explore.

Killing Apps

You might be asking, “Well, why would I want to do that?” There are times where apps misbehave or hang leaving a dead app on your phone or tablet. These can drag down the performance of your phone. For this reason, killing an app allows you to restart them to get them working again. Without further adieu, let’s get started…

Apple iOS

To kill apps on iOS 11, it’s simple. For Apple devices that have a home button (this excludes iPhone X), double click the home button. The home button is the button located at the bottom or side of your device (depending on orientation). It’s the only front facing button on the bezel. With the device logged in, double click this home button.

For the iPhone X, the line at the bottom kind of acts like a home button. From the line at the bottom, with your finger drag upwards to minimize the apps into a stacked list. This is similar to double clicking the home button.

Once in the stacked list, kill any specific app or all apps as follows:

• Press and hold your finger on top of one of the stacked app screens and with a fluid motion, drag your finger to the top of the screen.
  • If you perform this motion correctly, the screen will disappear. The app is now killed.
  • If you notice the screen moving side to side and not up and down, you dragged sideways.
  • Scrolling side to side lets you selectively choose which app to kill. Try again to pull the app screen upwards.
  • If you touch the app screen once, it will bring that app to the foreground.
  • If you touch the background outside of the app, it will bring you to your home screen of icons.
• To kill all apps, perform this motion on each and every stack app screen until there are no more left.
• No, iOS does not provide a ‘kill all’ feature. You must kill app separately. Note, you can’t hear the double-clicking of the home button. Here’s an iOS demonstration:

Android

To kill apps on Android 6.x or above, you’ll need to locate the double rectangle button either on the bezel of your phone or on the display of your phone (at the bottom). This double-rectangle button drops you into the screen that shows you all of your currently running apps.

Click this button, then follow along based on the videos:

• To kill all apps at once, there is a single button. You’ll see it after you press the double-rectangle button… it has 3 lines with an X, but it may look different on your device. Here’s a quick demonstration:
• To kill apps one at a time, there is an X on the stacked app screen list. Click the X’s located in each window as demonstrated:

Obvious isn’t always

Because Apple and Android have both hidden this feature behind cryptic buttons, it isn’t sometimes obvious how to do this. Also note that even if you reboot your device, the apps may still continue to run from the state where they formerly were. To kill an app and start it fresh (particularly on iOS), the only way is to kill the app as described above. I find that, for example, I regularly have to kill Hulu as it likes to hang.

Good Luck!

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