If your Android phone keeps crashing, you can usually pin it down to three potential causes. Your phone is either suffering from malware, battery drain or in most cases, a memory leak problem.
Phone memory leaks are rather harmless if the source is the app itself: sometimes, the app developer fails to fix coding errors. In such cases, you can simply remove the app but in other leak scenarios, the phone’s ability to handle memory requests is the main issue.
For this, we will consider three separate apps and share a list of methods to ensure you stay on top of the problem.
Also read: How to Uninstall Bloatware and System Apps without Root in Android
Symptoms of Memory Leaks in Android Apps
Memory leaks have been plaguing Android phones from their earliest builds. For example, at the time of launch of Lollipop, there was a memory leak which would cause the screen color to fade. The app to fix the color fade problem has been discontinued because Android has fixed it from version 5.1 itself.
Nowadays, a more typical problem is due to Java issues, mainly improper GarbageCollection (GC). Due to memory errors, GC fails to remove unused objects in time. As the leak accumulates, it can lead to slowdowns and frequent system crashes.
There can be also memory leaks due to screen rotation errors. The problem is an asynchronous task leak which is again connected to faulty GC issues.
1. Memory Optimizer
Memory optimizer is a good way to fix leaks traced to cache trash issues or corrupt temporary file errors. To work with this app, allow it to access photos, medias and files on your device.
Click “Clean now” to detect any memory problems so that it can be fixed.
It takes a while for the app to clean RAM and make more memory available.
In the following example, I was able to diagnose 1.16 GB of cache trash which was a good thing to know.
The app also shows unnecessary processes consuming a lot of memory. Some of them can be discontinued.
By following above steps, I was able to recover a lot of free space and memory utilization went down to only 19% from 70%.
Also read: 5 Top Apps to Benchmark Your Mobile Phone
2. Hyper MemoryCleaner
If you’re using anything below Android 8.0, you will face fragmentation error memory leak issues unlike more recent versions. HyperMemoryCleaner helps you reduce memory allocation to low priority apps.
I was able to free up RAM up to 446 MB. This is an older 6.0 phone with 1 GB RAM.
3. Memory Booster
If you want an all-round performance for any Android version, Memory Booster is a good pick. It is certainly a highly rated app with glowing reviews.
The app shows you your used memory status which in my phone’s case was very high. Although there were no obvious symptoms, I did notice slowdowns.
If you click startup boost, you will get a quick summary of apps that are causing slowdown during startup. You can disable a few of them.
Speed boost option gives instant memory boost by clearing backlogs and leaks in all system processes.
The app improved memory gain by 1.19 GB which was a phenomenal score.
Tips to Decrease Memory Leaks
Reduce clutter: to reduce memory leaks, you must first reduce the internal storage clutter. You can usually access a “clean up” option in “Files & Storage” which you must periodically employ to eliminate files and apps consuming space.
Identify where the leak happens: using the three apps discussed here, you can identify the location of the leak. They exist near the cache or temporary files, RAM clutter or backlogs in system processes/start-up issues.
Optimize the phone Internet settings: try to reduce excessive background Wi-Fi scans and data usage. If you’re not using your phone, it is better to turn off the Internet.
Remove any app that consumes too much RAM: if your phone has a limited capacity, you need to watch out for the ones that consume too many system processes.
Conclusion
Android phone memory is one of the most critical criteria that governs our purchase of a new device. However, even if you have a lot of RAM, it can get over-consumed by bloatware apps which follow a version of Parkinson’s law: data expands to fill the space available to it. Thus, it’s always better to detect and fix memory leaks in Android.
Have you followed your own steps and apps to reduce Android memory leaks? Do share with us your observations in the comments.
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