Techie/phone people, I need help

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I have an HTC One M8 (Android), and I'm having a couple of problems. One is memory--there's probably a good 20 apps on there that are native and that I will never use, but that I'm not able to uninstall. I would really like that memory back! Is there a way to force the uninstall on those? 

 

The other problem is bigger, and I'm hoping someone knows an app or solution for this. It seems like an increasing number of the apps on my phone insist on running in the background. I use a task killer app to close everything periodically, but I when I open the task killer immediately after using it, already there are 10-12 apps running again. And stupid apps, like my Panera app! Why does that need to be running constantly?! I'm having a hard time charging my phone and keeping it charged because of this. I was worried that it was my battery, but yesterday I realized that my task killer notification pops up almost as soon as I turn my phone on, which means a lot of the apps have started running for no reason. 

 

So! Has anyone come across solutions for either of those two things? I love my phone, but the scramble to constantly make sure I have some battery life is getting very frustrating, especially when I'm out and about and the kids are at home.

 

Thanks!

[hornblower]

have you tried the steps here: https://www.androidpit.com/how-to-stop-apps-running-in-the-background-on-android

I think lollipop keeps things running in the background more by default than kitkat did. The app killer isn't enough because you have to go in & disable them from restarting.

I don't think you can remove native apps unless you root it. 

(edited to fix link. again.) 

Edited May 21, 2016 by hornblower

[Miss Tick]

You sound savvy enough to have already done this, but make sure you uninstall updates on apps you don't use, and set apps to notify you of updates rather than automatically updating.

 

Sounds frustrating.

Edited May 21, 2016 by SusanC

[brynndolyn]

Do you have an SD card in your phone? If not you should see about getting one, that can give you a ton more memory. That doesn't help get rid of the apps you don't want but I'm not sure you can do anything about that.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Lanny]

I am one of the last people to get an Android phone.  I am reading "Android Phones for Dummies".  It has several "typos" but I'm glad I bought the book.  My belief (and experience so far) is that you can disable or even remove some Apps, but others apparently are impossible to remove or disable, unless you "root" the phone.  My phone is old (Android 4.4) and this may vary with Android 5.1.  For example, I am using the Gmail App.  I would like to remove the Email App, which I don't plan to use, but that seems to be impossible, so far.  One thing I have read is that Android will put Inactive (Not used recently) Apps to sleep or something, so that may make the use of a Task Manager Redundant or even problematic.  GL

 

 

[Miss Tick]

Do you have an SD card in your phone? If not you should see about getting one, that can give you a ton more memory. That doesn't help get rid of the apps you don't want but I'm not sure you can do anything about that.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

One problem I had with getting an SD card was that the phone won't allow me to put much out there because it is outside the firewall. So, sadly, I could not put apps (or games) on the SD card, pictures and videos, yes.