Watchdog Task Manager
You don't need a task killer. But you do need a way to make sure a background app doesn't lose control and eat up all your CPU. Watchdog monitors your apps and alerts when one loses control, allowing you to kill just that single app. Killing apps blindly can cause them to stop working as designed, and most app developers won't even take a bug report from you if you are using a task killer!
From Android 2.2 on, the kill command works only on background apps, and they will likely restart immediately. Watchdog removes the app immediately from the list, since there isn't feedback about whether it was successful. Having lots of apps running doesn't hurt your phone at all unless they are doing something. In fact, killing an app and having it immediately restart simply consumes your phones resources. If you just leave the apps running, they will start immediately when you want to go back to it.
The paid version has all the features of the lite, removing the ads, while adding a “blacklist” feature. This allows you to pick a single app that is constantly misbehaving and assign a CPU % threshold to it. When that app exceeds the threshold, it will be automatically killed.
So stop blindly killing all your apps; be smart by managing them instead. Good for all versions of Android.
NOTE: There is an Android issue where Watchdog might crash upon launching after an upgrade. It seems to be related to the upgrade of the app while the old version happens to be executing in the background. It doesn't affect your phone's operation at all. If this happens, re-launch and goto the menu and hit restart for proper monitoring.
Category : Tools
Reviews (17)
Purchased in 2015 but no longer works! Just keeps crashing.
keeps crashing on s10 not compatible
Task killing is bad for your android so get this. It doesn't use any battery life and alert limits can be raised/lowered. Does what it should, when it should. Showed me just how much work the pre-installed crapware made my phone do, so rooted and flashed new rom and now my phone is a starship, many thanks devs
thanx zomut, this is the best app on android for managing ur apps. if anyone can't understand it then go to website and it's all in black and white. my battery and phone works sweet all the time. don't kill those apps, just manage them. beta than juice defender
Shame on you Zomut! I bought this app because of all the great reviews, but it turns out that I was duped. After doing some research, I learned that the developer abandoned this app in 2013 and without updates it doesn't work on newer devices such as marshmallow. They abandoned it but are still collecting money from unaware consumers. They won't even respond to anyone's emails. It's theft in my opinion!
I only bough because of blacklist feature which is clearly not working. It only hides the apps in watchdog but they are keep running in the background as other applications show them. Plus the cpu usage still 90% however watchdog only show 20% and my phone temperature is still high so they are still running. I will claim a refund.
Early days having only been using the app for less than a week. But already, I'm very pleased with everything. My days of randomly killing "suspicious" apps with equally dodgy apps are over. The clear message is to let Watchdog and Android work closely together in harmony!
I didn't know how memory usage operated until I installed Watchdog. I have a much better understanding of how apps are placed in memory but may not be running. It is only when the CPU is being used that the phone's performance is negatively impacted.
I've used this app for years, but it stopped working properly about six months ago on my HTC One M9, even after a factory reset. The only app that shows in the list is Watchdog itself.
This used to work, but now it does nothing on my Z2. The only app it shows is itself. It's sad when you pay for an app and then the developers just ignore updates to the O/S, leaving the app useless. The upside is according to several sources Android now controls Apps itself and, ones like this are now redundant.
The app is great and has definitely helped fix the lagging issues on my phone. However, I don't seem to have any settings or help options (or at least I can't find them). I would give 5 stars if / when this is fixed.
... but itself, on my LG G4 with latest Android version from AT&T. And yes, I checked the Android settings to give it access. It does not even show up there, which makes me wonder why this is still being sold, if not anymore supported and kept current. Big thumbs down.
For any smartphone. I would like a request. Please add Global Blacklist CPU threshold that automatically kills app excluding app in whitelist. I could set blacklist thresholds for all of them but i'm too lazy and I constantly switching different custom ROMs. Perfect new feature I'd say myself.
Highly recommend! Your CPU us more important than your memory usage! Highlighted the apps dragging my performance down immediately, allowing me to fix the issues. Before this app it would have taken me 5 mins to Swype this text you're reading instead of 30 secs!
Adjustable alerts are great, helped me identify some consistently poor performers so I could uninstall them and use alternates. Doesn't seem to affect performance or battery time itself much, despite running in the background. Good app!
Really useful programme. Let's me know if an app is playing up. Only one programme so far called Android Media Process. Unfortunately it's part of the phone system so there's nothing I can do about it except wait for it to calm down. At least with Watchdog I know what's causing my phone's playing up.
Offsetting the 1 stars that are mostly down to this being an old app and modern security settings making it unable to do what it once did. Yeah, it crashes on my modern phone too. That same updated OS also says it's made for an older version and may not work. If you have an older OS that this is made for, it's a great app. Ignore the hate it's getting because Google changed the way Android works!