Determining the current foreground application from a background task or service

Question

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

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

This worked for me. But it gives only the main menu name. That is if user has opened Settings --> Bluetooth --> Device Name screen, RunningAppProcessInfo calls it as just Settings. Not able to drill down furthur

ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager) context.getSystemService( Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE );
                PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
                List<RunningAppProcessInfo> appProcesses = activityManager.getRunningAppProcesses();
                for(RunningAppProcessInfo appProcess : appProcesses) {              
                    if(appProcess.importance == RunningAppProcessInfo.IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND) {
                        CharSequence c = pm.getApplicationLabel(pm.getApplicationInfo(appProcess.processName, PackageManager.GET_META_DATA));
                        Log.i("Foreground App", "package: " + appProcess.processName + " App: " + c.toString());
                    }               
                }

Answer 3

I combined two solutions in one method and it works for me for API 24 and for API 21. Others I didn't test.

The code in Kotlin:

private fun isAppInForeground(context: Context): Boolean {
    val appProcessInfo = ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo()
    ActivityManager.getMyMemoryState(appProcessInfo)
    if (appProcessInfo.importance == IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND ||
            appProcessInfo.importance == IMPORTANCE_VISIBLE) {
        return true
    } else if (appProcessInfo.importance == IMPORTANCE_TOP_SLEEPING ||
            appProcessInfo.importance == IMPORTANCE_BACKGROUND) {
        return false
    }

    val am = context.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE) as ActivityManager
    val foregroundTaskInfo = am.getRunningTasks(1)[0]
    val foregroundTaskPackageName = foregroundTaskInfo.topActivity.packageName
    return foregroundTaskPackageName.toLowerCase() == context.packageName.toLowerCase()
}

and in Manifest

<!-- Check whether app in background or foreground -->
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.GET_TASKS" />

Answer 4

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;
}

Answer 5

Taking into account that getRunningTasks() is deprecated and getRunningAppProcesses() is not reliable, I came to decision to combine 2 approaches mentioned in StackOverflow:

   private boolean isAppInForeground(Context context)
    {
        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP)
        {
            ActivityManager am = (ActivityManager) context.getSystemService(ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
            ActivityManager.RunningTaskInfo foregroundTaskInfo = am.getRunningTasks(1).get(0);
            String foregroundTaskPackageName = foregroundTaskInfo.topActivity.getPackageName();

            return foregroundTaskPackageName.toLowerCase().equals(context.getPackageName().toLowerCase());
        }
        else
        {
            ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo appProcessInfo = new ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo();
            ActivityManager.getMyMemoryState(appProcessInfo);
            if (appProcessInfo.importance == IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND || appProcessInfo.importance == IMPORTANCE_VISIBLE)
            {
                return true;
            }

            KeyguardManager km = (KeyguardManager) context.getSystemService(Context.KEYGUARD_SERVICE);
            // App is foreground, but screen is locked, so show notification
            return km.inKeyguardRestrictedInputMode();
        }
    }

Answer 6

From lollipop onwards this got changed. Please find below code, before that user has to go Settings -> Security -> (Scroll down to last) Apps with usage access -> Give the permissions to our app

private void printForegroundTask() {
    String currentApp = "NULL";
    if(android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
        UsageStatsManager usm = (UsageStatsManager) this.getSystemService(Context.USAGE_STATS_SERVICE);
        long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
        List<UsageStats> appList = usm.queryUsageStats(UsageStatsManager.INTERVAL_DAILY,  time - 1000*1000, time);
        if (appList != null && appList.size() > 0) {
            SortedMap<Long, UsageStats> mySortedMap = new TreeMap<Long, UsageStats>();
            for (UsageStats usageStats : appList) {
                mySortedMap.put(usageStats.getLastTimeUsed(), usageStats);
            }
            if (mySortedMap != null && !mySortedMap.isEmpty()) {
                currentApp = mySortedMap.get(mySortedMap.lastKey()).getPackageName();
            }
        }
    } else {
        ActivityManager am = (ActivityManager)this.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
        List<ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo> tasks = am.getRunningAppProcesses();
        currentApp = tasks.get(0).processName;
    }

    Log.e(TAG, "Current App in foreground is: " + currentApp);
}