Posted on November 25, 2021, 2:06 PM

If you've been using Android for a long time, you're used to long-pressing the power button to (logically) turn your phone on or off. For a while, a long press of the button when the phone was on also allowed you to restart it, lock it, or report an emergency. (For a short time in Android 10, you could also use it to take screenshots).

So you might have been a little confused if, after upgrading your phone to Android 12, you found that a long press of the power button didn't bring up the shutdown menu, but instead activated Google Assistant. . This is something that was instituted with the new version of the OS, and it's supposed to be a good thing.

You can still get the power and emergency menu by pressing the power and volume up buttons at the same time – which might work for you if you rarely (if ever) need to turn off your phone. But if you'd rather have less intrusive access to the emergency button or want to go back to being able to long-press the power button to turn off or restart your phone, don't worry — you can go back. Here's how:

Besides, there are a number of different options for using taps and other gestures in the Gestures menu that you can take advantage of. For example, you can configure Quick Tap (two taps on the back of the phone) to activate a number of features – for example, you can use it to take a screenshot, open a specific application or even access Google Assistant (this is how I set it up so I can hold down the power button long press for that emergency menu).

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You can also arrange to double-press the power button to launch your camera, return to the good old three-button navigation at the bottom of your screen, or face down your phone to activate Do Not Disturb, among others.

All of these functions, as well as others, can be enabled or disabled in the Gestures menu.

Lucas GauvinA graduate of the school of computer engineering 42, Lucas is a real jack of all trades in computing: code, connected objects, hosting… Hardware and software have (almost) no secrets for him.

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