Android: Programmatically open "Recent Apps" dialog

You cannot access that. However, it isn't super hard to roll your own. The getRecentTasks() method returns a list of recently run apps. Simply take the list and add your own UI to it.

One advantage to this is that the default one, at least on older versions of Android, only shows you about 8 apps. If you roll your own can show as many as you want.

This code won't work on Nougat or later

It is possible to trigger the recent apps activity.

The StatusBarManagerService implements an public method which you can use through reflection.

You can use the following code:

Class serviceManagerClass = Class.forName("android.os.ServiceManager");
Method getService = serviceManagerClass.getMethod("getService", String.class);
IBinder retbinder = (IBinder) getService.invoke(serviceManagerClass, "statusbar");
Class statusBarClass = Class.forName(retbinder.getInterfaceDescriptor());
Object statusBarObject = statusBarClass.getClasses()[0].getMethod("asInterface", IBinder.class).invoke(null, new Object[] { retbinder });
Method clearAll = statusBarClass.getMethod("toggleRecentApps");
clearAll.setAccessible(true);
clearAll.invoke(statusBarObject);

Have fun