If you’re a smartphone owner, you may have heard of background apps. If you haven’t, it’s good to be aware of them and how they could be affecting how well your phone functions.
Background apps are programs that keep running even when you are not actively using them. They might update content, send notifications, or track your location in the background. While this can be helpful, it also means your phone is doing extra work even when you think it is ‘asleep.’ What many people do not realize is that too many background apps can slow down an iPhone or Android, making your smartphone seem less efficient over time. We spoke with tech and gaming expert Michael Pedrotti with Ghostcap and Stefan Fotelov with Serpact about four background apps that may be slowing down your phone. Read more about them below.
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1. Facebook & Facebook Messenger
Despite any drama with its founder, Facebook continues to be one of the most popular and frequently used social media apps, and it can also be doing some hard work in the background on your smartphone. The platform app and its messaging app refresh your news feed, send notifications, and track activity in the background, so everything feels up to date when you open it.
"Facebook will drain your phone more covertly than any other application combination," explains Pedrotti. "They have some background processes that will use 800MB to 1200MB of your RAM while you are asleep, maintain live calling connections, and scan your photos with face recognition before you upload them."
2. Instagram
Another one of today's most popular apps is Instagram, which more and more people are using to give others a glimpse into their lives. While it may seem like a simple app that keeps you updated on pictures and videos, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes, tech-wise, than you may think.
"Instagram is putting a tremendous load on your phone in its efforts to deliver that instant-scroll experience," says Pedrotti. "It is downloading 50-100MB of stories and reels every hour that you will ever view, and it runs three independent camera buffers all at once. What most amazed me is that Instagram requires between 600-900MB of RAM just to run all of the photos in your recent feed with several filter previews running in the background."
3. Snapchat
While it may just look like an app where you swap silly pictures and videos with your friends that eventually disappear, Snapchat is a little more complex than one may think, given there are also features like stories, the Snap Map, and more.
"Snapchat makes your phone believe that it owns it, and it continuously checks your GPS every 8-12 seconds to update your Snap Map, while also leaving your camera in the warm-up position," explains Pedrotti. "The application saves AR filter data that increases to 2-3GB after a few months, which is a harbinger of nightmares for the storage of most users. The true performance killer is Snapchat's ghost mode camera access feature that continuously runs your camera feed to register your face on the camera even if the application appears to be shut down; you drain battery power because Snapchat isn't going to sleep."
4. Weather Apps
One of the best parts about owning a smartphone is being able to check the weather conditions in your area at any time, as the preinstalled weather apps tend to have your location and are consistently refreshing to keep you posted. However, it's just another example of a background app working when you're not even using it.
"Weather apps often refresh automatically based on your location, sometimes every 15 minutes," says Fotelov. "This involves GPS polling and downloading updated forecast data, which can quietly drain resources. Even if you rarely open the app, it may still be running in the background."
