Android 17 will “choke” RAM-hungry apps — and can kill them if they go too far

Google is expanding Android 17’s per-app memory limits to more devices, giving the operating system more control over how apps use RAM. The idea is simple: to prevent a single memory-hungry app from slowing down the entire smartphone.

The feature initially appeared on Pixel devices, but Google says it will roll out to more Android phones over the coming year. It will cover devices with anywhere from 4 GB to more than 16 GB of RAM.

When an app starts using more memory than Android allows, the system can step in. It may first move some of the app’s data into compressed memory, allowing the app to keep running while using less RAM. However, this can make the app feel slower because the phone has to spend additional processing power compressing and decompressing data.

If that isn't enough and the app continues to consume too much memory, Android can eventually shut it down completely.

For users, the change should mean fewer situations where a single poorly optimized or memory-hungry app causes the entire phone to become sluggish. The benefits could be particularly noticeable on entry-level devices with less RAM, a category that is becoming more important as soaring memory prices make high-RAM configurations increasingly expensive.

Google is also asking developers to make sure their apps stay within the new limits. If they do, users shouldn't notice much difference. The goal is simply to keep Android running smoothly when people switch between apps, play games, or run demanding AI workloads.

There is a potential downside, however. Apps that genuinely require large amounts of memory could become slower or be closed by the system if they aren't properly optimized. Google is therefore providing developers with new tools to identify and address memory-related issues.

Overall, Android 17 is becoming much less tolerant of apps that hog RAM. Instead of letting one resource-hungry app affect the whole phone, the system will increasingly put it on a tighter memory budget — and shut it down if it refuses to play by the rules.

One important note: the claim about soaring RAM prices and their effect on the number of low-RAM devices isn't supported by the source you provided. If you want to keep that point, I'd either provide the source for it or phrase it more cautiously.