This is a ticket copy of the now-inaccessible ticket:

• https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/2052
• https://web.archive.org/web/20230323072145/https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/2052

This ticket is a feature request to add an option that allows the user to "kill -9" the currently-open app by holding the back button for ~1 second.

Note: By the term "kill" I'm referring to the equivalent of kill -9 on a linux system. That is, by "kill" I mean not simply moving the app to the background (eg by swiping it aside in the app switcher). Rather, I mean the app's process is completely killed.

This is an important security feature for a user who is playing with a new app. Sometimes a fat-finger mistake or a misbehaving app may begin to do something undesired (eg exfiltrating data by mistake), and it's necessary for the user to quickly kill the app.

As far as I can tell, the only way to do this in GrapheneOS is currently to:

1. go to the device's app menu,
2. find the relevant app,
3. click-and-hold the app's icon,
4. click "app info"
5. click "force stop"

The above process takes a long time, and is probably not fast enough to kill an app that, for example, is sending an unwanted POST request. By adding this feature, the time to kill the app could be reduced to ~1 second.

Also, this feature has long been available in LineageOS. Sometimes I use it several times per day for misbehaving apps (sometimes it's security related, sometimes it's just convenience for working with a buggy app).

• https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/239169/how-to-kill-an-app-in-lineageos-18-android-11-by-holding-the-back-button

Please consider adding this simple feature to GrapheneOS that allows users to kill the currently-open app by holding-down the back button.