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I was playing with Battery Saver when I realized that some apps that are not allowed to run in background (they even don't have the option) are shown as they used battery in background.

As you can see Weather is showing battery consumption in background, but it is allowed.

In the other way Perfect Kick and Flipboard show some background data consumption even though they don't have the permission.

How could it be happen?

Edit: Added more pics of the problem

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    This is a really good question. I could imagine that things like auto-updates and the duration until the app is suspended but not in the foreground anymore (usually just a few seconds) contribute to that Background battery usage - but of couse I could be wrong. – Thomas Jan 22 '15 at 15:26
  • The problem is that Flipboard in this case, uses more battery in background than a GAME I played more than 5 minutes. And I even don't open the Flipboard. It's just there in case my RSS and Twitter are all read. ;) – Vitor Canova Jan 22 '15 at 15:42
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    Apps can request background downloads from the OS; and it might be these being attributed to the app, even though it doesn't specifically have it's own background agent, but until I can test that theory, I'll leave this as a comment :) – Rowland Shaw♦ Jan 22 '15 at 15:45
  • possible duplicate of Why don't some apps have the "Allow app to run in the background" option? – Indrek♦ Jan 22 '15 at 16:24
  • @Indrek Don't know if it qualify as duplicated. Because I'm focusing in why the app is showing consumption even though its not allowed to use background. If more people ask to close I will close. ;) – Vitor Canova Jan 22 '15 at 16:56
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These apps show battery consumption because they do actually run on background and perform some work even though they don't have permissions to run in background. I can provide a few examples.

  • Outlook - Sync my mail in background
  • People hub - Sync my account, contacts in background
  • Messenger - Shows me push notifications
  • Loco Music player - Scans my music library in background

The Games which I have background battery consumption are

  • Microsoft Sudoku
  • Wordament
  • Temple run

All these games have Xbox live integration in common, and I believe that is the reason for background battery consumption. Also temple Run updates the list of Daily challenges in background. Games could perform such activities in background.

I believe that only apps which are marked as not allowed by the user are restricted in background. And the apps which don't have any such permissions, do run on background.

Most of their background activities are due to

  • Account integrations
  • Push notifications
  • Scanning media libraries
  • Live tile updates
  • Application updates
  • Applications sending data collected to their services such as diagnosis information
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  • Strange that Flipboard (for example) does not update my tile, does not have push notifications and so on. – Vitor Canova Dec 3 '15 at 11:35
  • @VitorCanova It may be due to Flipboard sending information collected on your device to their servers. Flipboard collects data such as data about your device, operating system, software, user specific advertising IDs, your IP address and date and time of each request you make through Flipboard. It is given in their privacy policy. It consumed only <1%, so sending of such data can cause that background usage. These data may collected regardless of you using the application. – Kolappan N Dec 3 '15 at 12:55
  • What are you saying is that even when the app is not allowed to run in background it can? – Vitor Canova Dec 3 '15 at 15:09
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    That's strange. Look those new screenshots I provided. The app Font Candy was not started and is disallowed since ever and still has background consumption. – Vitor Canova Dec 4 '15 at 10:38
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    Yeah. They were completely lost on it. – Vitor Canova Dec 4 '15 at 17:22

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