How to disable EA App/Launcher Opening/Appearing when I close EA games

Product: The EA app
Platform:PC
Error Report ID (learn how to create an Error Report ID in the sticky post)
Which client functionality are you experiencing this bug with? Other (Please Describe)
Please describe EA App does not stay minimised to system tray
When did this happen? (dd.mm.yy hh:mm) Every time
Summarize your bug EA App does not stay minimised to system tray and opens by itself unnecessarily.
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Install EA App. Buy EA game in Steam. Run game. Behold as the EA App pointlessly opens a log-in pop-up. Play game. Close game. Behold again how the EA App has decided to open by itself. Manually minimise EA App.
What happens when the bug occurs? EA App interferes with other processes, such as Steam Link. It steals focus. Break things. Does the opposite of being usable and transparent.
What do you expect to see? I expect to NOT SEE the EA App, because it is minimised to the System Tray. That is where it should stay until I open it again. For more information, ask ALL THE OTHER apps that obey the System Tray usability rules perfectly.

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The EA App has two very irritating and entirely non-sensical behaviours:

1. It opens up from the system tray for NO REASON when you run an EA game purchased in Steam. The app should STAY MINIMISED link Steam does - like ALL OTHER apps do. There's no reason to see it pop up.
   
   
2. It opens from the system tray for NO REASON when you close an EA game which was run via Steam. This app should stay minimised.

This behaviour:

• frequently sabotages Steam Link functionality, because it steals focus.
• often causes the EA game to run minimised, which means that the user has to manually maximise, which often breaks full-screen functionality in the app.
• gets in the way of "play". You know, "EA PLAY".

This behaviour is also made 100% worse by the VERY long-running bug by which the EA App is completely UNABLE to retain its log-in cookie or whatever. So if you close the app and run it again, or you just BOOT the computer, you will have to log-in manually again.

So the solution is simple: 

1. Fix the log-in bug. It's been a couple of years, so I am sure the patch is almost read to roll out.
2. Do all your DRM checking in the background when an EA game is evoked by Steam.
3. Obey the user's settings and KEEP THE APP MINIMISED unless the user decides to open it up again.  The user does NOT need to see the app unless the user wants to.

Will it happen? Issue 1) has been known about for ages, but it has never been fixed.

Will I buy more EA games on PC? Definitely not.

Hello @UberNoodle,

I have moved your post since it is more of a feedback rather than a bug report or technical issue with the EA app client.

Regarding the situation where the EA app launches itself when you launch an EA game through Steam, this is actually intended behaviour. Many other publisher games available on launchers like Steam require the launcher of the main publisher, in this case, the EA app, to function properly.

In regards to the EA app popping back up in the foreground once you close an EA game or finish your play session and close the game, this is also by design. However, we appreciate your feedback on this matter and have shared it with the appropriate teams.

I hope this clarifies things for you. Let me know if there's anything else I can assist you with.

Thanks.

So this issue has been going since they launched the app and they haven't added any way (like in origin) that the EA Desktop app doesn't show up after exiting a game.
I have been so annoyed by this that I asked MS copilot to help me write a small batch file that kills the process by just clicking on it.
And here it is;

Create a desktop text document, open it up and write (without the quotation marks) "taskkill /F /IM EADesktop.exe".
Now save the file and close it. Rename it to something like Close EA App.bat and you're set. Now every time you exit the game just quickly run that batch file and it completely kills that stupid app.
I hope this helps somewhat.

It was answered on a closed thread that going on the upper left menu and click Exit would actually close it.

Unfortunately I think we should still have a way to close it with the standard X as it otherwise is a deceiving behavior.

Please give us an option to actually close when clicking X.

Hello,

I came to the forums for this exact reason:

'In regards to the EA app popping back up in the foreground once you close an EA game or finish your play session and close the game, this is also by design. '

Who chose for this to be? It's annoying and NOT necessary. Just leave it minimized after closing a game like all the others.

If I want to play another game, I'll launch the app myself and if I want to close it, I'll close it.

I saw a post from DECEMBER saying this... that post was closed lmao. See blow:

how do i stop ea app opening when i open or close a game - Answer HQ

PLEASE, forward this to whoever chose that design and PLEASE just let it stay minimized. Everybody wants it.....

I was in the process of writing a similar post, but I'll drop it here since this thread isn't very old.

I'd like to expand on why this is annoying for users with some application behavior that's been bothering me a lot lately. Because the EA App steals focus, I frequently have to force close a game that immediately relaunches after I close it due to my key inputs intended for another application.

An example of what usually happens:

I decide I'm done with a game for the day or I need to relaunch to troubleshoot something.

I close the game and switch focus to my browser or to Discord to do a quick search or reply to a message.

While typing in another application, the EA App forces itself to be the active foreground application.

My key inputs that are intended for another application cause the game to launch again.

I have to open task manager to force shut down the game and get just a bit more fed up with this nonsensical application behavior.

I understand that the app forcing itself to be the computer's focus is intended behavior, but surely the EA App should be designed to prevent unintentional game launches.

Personally, I'd much rather it stay minimized. Or there to be an option to request it stay minimized after closing a game, while stealing focus remains the application's default behavior. Options for users are great! Trying to make a one fits all is not.

But if it's written in stone that the EA App must steal focus, then I think a potential solution to at least prevent unintentional game launches could be ignoring user key inputs for a set duration after it regains focus. After a bit of testing I've done (launching a game and closing it while typing my post), the game will relaunch during a short window where the application seems to be syncing data or something along those lines. And key presses within that window will relaunch the game.

I also came here to write a similar post. I was working on a document in Word and an EA App notification kept popping up. When it popped up, suddenly I was no longer working in Word, and instead the notification window made sure my typing was going to it.

It was very irritating, especially since it popped up several times. It was telling me it couldn't connect to the internet and I needed to restart the app. That was just an issue with my VPN which was easily resolved and did not need that level of urgent notification.

The app shouldn't be yanking focus away from other applications, especially if those are being actively used at the time.

Same problem here.

Such an annoying behavior, every time you close a game the EA App opens a window without being asked to do so. And it blinks on the Windows taskbar! Every time it happens it makes me hate EA. Every time a little more. Terrible app, I won't buy another EA game as long as the EA App has such an annoying functionality.

(And this week I noticed another "feature" of the app - if it crashes for any reason, it will forcefully close whatever game you were running, even tho the game itself isn't crashing and running fine, and pull you out of your multiplayer game, what a fun concept! /s)