Require password to turn off for all Android devices

Question

A relative of mine recently lost his phone and someone turned it off immediately and now the phone is missing. Find My Device was unable to locate the phone as it had been turned off.

I have a few other devices that are running Android 12 or less, is there a way to force the user to enter a password to turn it off?

I did a search and it seems there is such a feature in newer Android devices by some manufacturers. One suggested way was to set up a macro on the longpress of the power button hence preventing it from shutting down.

Is there a way I can achieve this even if it means rooting my phone or using third-party apps?

Answer 1

There is no such feature. Even if a phone would have this feature this would be a conflict with the "force reboot" function which nearly all Android phones have: press and hold the power button for 10-30 seconds to force a reboot (just like the reset button on a PC).

This force reboot feature is very important since the phone batteries are built-in and can not be removed to force a shutdown. In case the OS gets into an unresponsive state this force reboot function is the only way to recover the phone without having to wait hours until the phone has run out of battery.

Note that the force reboot function is usually a hardware implemented function, thus even on a rooted phone you can not disable this function.