3 Ways to Turn Off Background Apps in Windows 10

On Windows 10, many apps that you download from the Microsoft Store will continue to run in the background to take advantage of additional features, such as downloading data, updating Live Tiles, and displaying notifications. So, in this guide, you’ll learn 3 different ways to turn off background apps in Windows 10 using the Settings app, Command Prompt, and Windows PowerShell.

While these features can be useful in a number of scenarios, background-running apps (even if you didn’t start them) can drain the battery, waste bandwidth, and system resources. Luckily, if keeping apps updated isn’t important to you, Windows 10 ships with settings to monitor which apps will be enabled to run in the background.

How to Turn Off Background Apps on Windows 10

Through disabling such programs, you can free up some memory, increase startup speed, save power, and make your machine more responsive.

Method #1. Disable Background Apps via Settings

Step 1. Open the Settings app or press Windows key + I.

Step 2. Select Privacy.

Privacy

Step 3. From the left-hand side, select Background apps.

Step 4. Turn off Let apps run in the background to completely disable all background apps.

Turn off Let apps run in the background

Or, you can also choose which apps you want to turn on or off.

you can also choose which apps you want to turn on or off

Method #2. Disable Background Apps via Command Prompt

• Open the Start menu and type cmd or command prompt in the search bar. Right-click on the Command Prompt app and select Run as administrator.
• Type the below command in the Command Prompt and press Enter to completely disable all background apps:

Reg Add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplications /v GlobalUserDisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

• To turn on the background apps again, enter the below command in the command prompt:

Reg Add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplications /v GlobalUserDisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Method #3. Turn Off Background Apps on Windows 10 via Windows PowerShell (Admin)

• Open the Start menu and type PowerShell in the search bar. Click on the Windows PowerShell app to open.
• Type the below command in the Windows PowerShell window and press Enter to turn off all the background apps:

Reg Add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplications /v GlobalUserDisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

• To turn on the background apps again, enter the below command in PowerShell:

Reg Add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplications /v GlobalUserDisabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f 

Wrapping Up 

That’s it. This is how you can turn off background apps in Windows 10 and I have shown you 3 different ways to do so. It seems that disabling background apps via the Settings app is the easiest way, as you can quickly turn on or off the background app.

You can either do it individually through Settings, or turn on/off all apps in Windows 10 via Command Prompt and PowerShell.

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