Google will soon begin flagging Android applications on the Play Store that exhibit high background activity and cause significant battery drain. Apps that cross a specific "bad behavior threshold" may be labeled as poor performers and could see their visibility reduced in the store's recommendations. Developers have until March 1, 2026, to optimize their software according to a new metric called "excessive partial wake locks."
This metric measures the cumulative time an app prevents a device from sleeping while the screen is off, excluding legitimate activities like audio playback. An app's behavior is deemed excessive when a single user session accumulates over two hours of such wake locks within a 24-hour period. If more than 5% of an app's user sessions exceed this limit over a 28-day window, it will be flagged.
This initiative, developed in collaboration with Samsung, aims to pressure developers to release resources promptly and scrutinize code from external libraries. While this policy could indirectly affect malware that abuses wake locks for data exfiltration, Google clarified that its primary goal is to improve battery performance and user experience, not specifically to target security threats. This is the first in a series of planned metrics designed to provide deeper insight into app resource utilization.
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