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The idea behind Android’swork profileis that you can easily separate your work from your personal life without having to carry a second smartphone around. All your work apps reside in a dedicated container that can easily be turned off at the end of the day, either manually or on a timer through Android’sDigital Wellbeingapp. Starting inAndroid 14, though, Google’s making some key changes to how the work profile, well,works.
In earlier versions of the Android OS, swiping over to the work tab in the launcher and then tapping the “pause work apps” button wouldturn offinstead of actuallypausethe work profile. This might sound like a distinction without a difference, but in Android, it actually means something. When a profile is turned off, all apps stop running as well, meaning they can’t poll for notifications or doanything. When you turn the profile back on, you could be inundated by notifications as all your apps start polling for them. In contrast, when a profile is paused, apps keep running in the background, so they can continue to poll for notifications. That means when you turn it back on, you won’t be flooded by notifications you missed.
In Android 14, the OS now pauses instead of turning off the work profile when the user taps the “pause work apps” button. The text in the work profile tab has been subtly modified to reflect this change. In Android 13, when the work profile is turned off, the launcher states that “your work apps can’t send you notifications, use your battery, or access your location.” In Android 14, this was changed to simply state that “you won’t receive notifications from your work apps.”
This change in wording suggests that work profile apps in Android 14 can use your battery and access your location when the work profile is paused, though a spokesperson for Google reached out following the publication of this article to inform us that work profile apps cannot, in fact, access your location when the profile is paused. Still, since apps can continue running, this could impact battery life — though by how much, we can’t say without further testing.
Left: Turning off a work profile in Android 13. Right: Pausing a work profile in Android 14.
I’m getting ahead of myself, though. How do I actually know that Android 14 pauses instead of turning off the work profile? I was first made aware of this change thanks to Android Enterprise expertJason Bayton, who attended Google’s annual Android Enterprise Partner Summit. I, too, was confused at first when I heard about what had supposedly changed, sinceGoogle’s documentationclearlystates that you’re already “pausing your work profile” when you hit the button that says “pause work apps.” After a bit of testing, though, I can confirm that Android 14 indeed changes how it manages the lifecycle of the work profile.
Using anADBcommand, I compared the output of the “dumpsys user” command — which returns detailed information about each “user” on Android — before and after turning off/pausing the work profile. (A work profile in Android is also known as a “managed profile.” I used the FOSS appShelterto create a work profile on my device for this test.)
Here’s the outputbeforeturning off the work profile on a device running Android 13:
And here’s the outputafterturning off the work profile on that same device:
As you can see, before turning it off, the work profile’s state was labeled as “RUNNING_UNLOCKED” which means it was actively running. After turning it off, the state was changed to “-1” and the flag QUIET_MODE was applied to it. Managed profiles can be put into quiet mode through theUserManager#requestQuietModeEnabled(…)API so long as they have the requisite permission. When quiet mode is enabled, “apps in a managed profile don’t run, generate notifications, or consume data or battery.” The quiet mode API basically provides a way for apps like the launcher and Digital Wellbeing to toggle the status of the work profile.
Now, here’s the output of the same commandbeforepausing the work profile, only this time on a device running Android 14:
And nowafterpausing the work profile:
Although the QUIET_MODE flag has still been applied, the state of the work profile is still labeled as “RUNNING_UNLOCKED”, which means it’s still running in the background.
Now that I’ve shown that Android 14 changes the behavior of the work profile, I have to explain why you should care. And for that I’ll turn to the person who first broke this news: Android Enterprise expert Jason Bayton. Inhis blog postmentioning the change, he explains:
Why would you choose to pause a work profile rather than just turn it off?
In many ways, this change benefits the end user. As I previously brought up, since apps can continue to poll for notifications in the background while the work profile is paused, they won’t flood your notifications when you unpause the profile. The notifications won’t actually show up in the notifications panel until you unpause the profile, same as before, though there might be a bug where notifications are still forwarded tosome connected wearables. We’ve asked Google for comment on this behavior, and will share an update if we hear anything.
Another benefit for the user, as mentioned by Jason, is that this helps users remain compliant with their corporate update policy. Previously, if a user disabled a work profile during an extended vacation, they could fall out of compliance because their device failed to apply updates until they turned the work profile back on. Since the work profile is never turned off, though, apps can be updated in the background in accordance with the company’s update policy.
There are some potential downsides to this change, however. For starters, since your work profile never turns off, it’s unclear how much of an impact this could have on your battery life. Another potential downside is that this could affect how some apps see whether you’re online. Jason expressed concern that he’ll never appear as offline to work colleagues due to this change, but a Google spokesperson told us that it’s up to individual app developers to determine whether a user is online. AndroidoffersAPIsthat apps can use to see whether they’re suspended, which previously weren’t possible for work profile apps to use at all since they wouldn’t be running when the user turns off the work profile.
As Jason puts it, Google basically replaced the previous behavior with an aggressive do-not-disturb mode, but it remains to be seen how this will impact work-life balance. In any case, it’s a fact that not all jobs will respect that you’re off the clock, so you better start working on establishing those boundaries now!
UPDATE: 2025-06-03 16:44 EST BY STEPHEN SCHENCK
Google response
Google has reached out to Android Police to offer additional details and clarify the nature of this work profile change. Our post has been updated to reflect this new information.
