How do I programmatically “restart” an Android app?

Question

Firstly, I know that one should not really kill/restart an application on Android. In my use case, I want to factory-reset my application in a specific case where a server s

Answer 1

The best way to fully restart an app is to relaunch it, not just to jump to an activity with FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP and FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK. So my solution is to do it from your app or even from another app, the only condition is to know the app package name (example: 'com.example.myProject')

 public static void forceRunApp(Context context, String packageApp){
    Intent launchIntent = context.getPackageManager().getLaunchIntentForPackage(packageApp);
    launchIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_EXCLUDE_FROM_RECENTS | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
    context.startActivity(launchIntent);
}

Example of usage restart or launch appA from appB:

forceRunApp(mContext, "com.example.myProject.appA");

You can check if the app is running:

 public static boolean isAppRunning(Context context, String packageApp){
    ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager) context.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
    List procInfos = activityManager.getRunningAppProcesses();
    for (int i = 0; i < procInfos.size(); i++) {
        if (procInfos.get(i).processName.equals(packageApp)) {
           return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Note: I know this answer is a bit out of topic, but it can be really helpful for somebody.