Determining the current foreground application from a background task or service

user_193583 0
Viewed 113487

I wish to have one application that runs in the background, which knows when any of the built-in applications (messaging, contacts, etc) is running.

So my questions are:

  1. How I should run my application in the background.

  2. How my background application can know what the application currently running in the foreground is.

Responses from folks with experience would be greatly appreciated.

android-background android-service android
14 Answers

Try the following code:

ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager) newContext.getSystemService( Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE );
List<RunningAppProcessInfo> appProcesses = activityManager.getRunningAppProcesses();
for(RunningAppProcessInfo appProcess : appProcesses){
    if(appProcess.importance == RunningAppProcessInfo.IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND){
        Log.i("Foreground App", appProcess.processName);
    }
}

Process name is the package name of the app running in foreground. Compare it to the package name of your application. If it is the same then your application is running on foreground.

I hope this answers your question.

user_5556690

The ActivityManager class is the appropriate tool to see which processes are running.

To run in the background, you typically want to use a Service.

user_141220

An easy solution is to use LiveData. Create a singleton LiveData variable. (probably in a plain Kotlin file).

val foregroundHelper = MutableLiveData<Unit>()

Observe From Activity or Fragment:

foregroundHelper.observe(this, Observer {}) // for Activity
foregroundHelper.observe(viewLifecycleOwner, Observer {}) // for Fragments

Now from Your Background Service, Broadcast Receiver, etc:

val appIsVisibleToTheUser = foregroundHelper.hasActiveObservers()
// Now your logic goes.
if (!appIsVisibleToUser) {
   // App is in background
   // So In my case:
   // I'm showing Notification to the user for the error happened in Background Service.
}

Thanks.

user_70339830

Do something like this:

int showLimit = 20;

/* Get all Tasks available (with limit set). */
ActivityManager mgr = (ActivityManager) getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
List<ActivityManager.RunningTaskInfo> allTasks = mgr.getRunningTasks(showLimit);
/* Loop through all tasks returned. */
for (ActivityManager.RunningTaskInfo aTask : allTasks) 
{                  
    Log.i("MyApp", "Task: " + aTask.baseActivity.getClassName()); 
    if (aTask.baseActivity.getClassName().equals("com.android.email.activity.MessageList")) 
        running=true;
}
user_2736240
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