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I'm a parent, using an accountability app (MMGuardian) to limit access to certain games and apps on a Nexus 5X. The child phone is running Android 8.1.0. MMGuardian can't stop a child from rebooting into safe mode for 7.0+, and the child using this phone has figured that out.

I'm looking for a solution that either holds the child accountable, or prevents access to safe mode altogether. Here are ideas I've thought of:

  • Custom lock screen that sends the parent pin to the OS when the child pin is entered. When rebooted in safe mode, lock screen wouldn't start and the child wouldn't know the parent pin.
  • Some kind of app that sends an sms to the parent phone when the child phone reboots. If possible, include whether or not the child phone was previously in safe mode. (Nine Mail app turns off all sync functionality if the phone was rebooted in safe mode. How does it know!?)

Unfortunately, since I'm not an android developer I don't know if apps like that exist or are possible to write.

Does anyone have suggestions for apps I can install or settings I can change that would either

A) Prevent starting in safe mode.

OR

B) Notify me, when the child phone has started in safe mode?

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you can use any number of kiosk apps to do this. I'm really not sure what they require or how they work, but they're designed for companies to lock down features for employees etc. as such they're somewhat spendy for Android apps, but I did see at least one for $30/year including tech support.

sorry I can't give you more info, but look in the Play Store for "kiosk" and take a look. I'm currently researching the same thing.

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