About this app

Hibernate is a small utility which allows you to hibernate selected background processes. It "kills" them by means of "killBackgroundProcesses" used internally by Android to free up resources. This method differs from killing applications in the system list of running processes in the way, that it allows applications to save their state before exit, so when you return to the hibernated process back, it will be restored to its previous state.

The utility can be usefull for developers who need to test how their applications behave while being unloaded and re-loaded by the system, as well as for other users searching for a way of system optimization on-the-fly.

THIS IS NOT A TASK KILLER. The app does actually freeze selected tasks, unloading them from operating memory and preventing further CPU usage, BUT the tasks remain in the system list of "running" tasks. According to Android documentation (citation): "Note that "running" does not mean any of the task's code is currently loaded or activity -- the task may have been frozen by the system, so that it can be restarted in its previous state when next brought to the foreground." And this is the Hibernate who instructs the system to freeze selected tasks. Please, note that you may see the button "Force stop" still enabled in the "App info" system dialog for hibernated tasks. This is because they are frozen, not removed. Unlike to the hibernation, the "stopping" does forcedly and completely destroy the app. This makes a big difference.

The app DOES NOT REQUIRE rooting you device. It is designed to work without SuperUser privileges.

The app supports a service mode allowing for automatic background hibernating of specified processes. Attention: use the service mode with a caution. If some of hibernated processes are recreated constantly by themselves, the service may exhaust the battery.

The service is configured in the settings dialog. Among other things you can enable or disable service notifications about varios events.

Use the Status dialog to edit the list of currently hibernated processes.

More details on the site. FAQ is also available at http://wifiline.blogspot.com/p/hibernate-faq.html.

If you think you found a bug, please contact me via e-mail and provide as many details as possible. There exist too many different devices and Android flavours, so I can't test the app on all of them. We could try to solve your specific problems together, instead of dumb downvoting of the app.

WARNING! It is strongly recommended to not hibernate apps which are installed as widgets on your launcher or lock screen.

WARNING! On Android 5+ active tasks can not be monitored anymore by system design. As a workaround, Hibernate does now provide a special accessibility service, which must be enabled manually by user in the system Accessibility settings. Without this hibernation service will not function properly on Android 5+.

In addition Google requires this text to appear here: "This app uses Accessibility services."


ATTENTION!!! Since some latest Android 5.1.1 builds (around LMY48I, august 2015) Google completely broke the functionality of Hibernate. They left no ways to get information about processes (IDs, priorities, etc.) through public APIs. I made a workaround with a limited functionality (for example, process priorities, services and dependencies are not listed anymore) and resource consumption may increase. This is not my fault. Please downvote Google itself. Alternatives are: not to upgrade to the latest Android versions or root your device.


ATTENTION! THE APPLICATION WILL NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY IN ANDROID 7+. GOOGLE INTENTIONALLY BROKE ALL METHODS OF PROCESS LISTING. YOU MAY FIND DETAILS HERE - https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=205565

New features

Fixed a problem on Android 5+: packages with subprocesses were skipped during listing.

On Android 5+, do not forget to re-enable the Hibernate's accessibility service.

App Permissions

Allows an application to call killBackgroundProcesses(String].
This constant was deprecated in API level 21. No longer enforced.
Allows an application to receive the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED that is broadcast after the system finishes booting.
Must be required by an AccessibilityService, to ensure that only the system can bind to it.