The embodiment of the invention discloses a memory recycle method and device. The method comprises the steps of determining a progress of a to-be-recycled memory in a background progress list when it is determined that a current available memory of a system is smaller than a memory threshold value, wherein the background progress list comprises progresses of one or more applications, the progress of the to-be-recycled memory is the progress which satisfies the condition that the absolute value of a difference value of a program occupied memory and a memory pressure value is smaller than a preset threshold value in the progresses of one or more applications, and the memory pressure value is a difference value of a memory threshold value and the current available memory of the system; sending a processing instruction to a system kernel to trigger the system kernel to process the progress of the to-be-recycled memory to recycle the memory occupied by the progress of the to-be-recycled memory. According to the memory recycle method and device, the probability that a terminal gets stuck can be reduced.