How to really shut down my android phone

[AC Question]

I have a HTC One, after a recent update, I noticed after the phone is shut down then booted up, the apps I had running before I shut the phone down are still open versus before the update, after a reboot or a shut down then boot up, no apps would be running. I get the list of running apps by double tapping on the bottom right button.

I remember I had a similar situation with a previous android phone, and there was a setting where when you shut down the phone, it doesn't really shut down, more like hibernate, so the apps are still kept open. After I switched off the setting, then reboot, the apps were longer open, which is what I want.

I don't remember what the setting was, and I went through all the setting options on my phone. Does anyone know what it is?

 

[Rukbat]

Long-press the power button. Power Off. That shuts the phone off. (If HTC maintains the list of recently used apps across power cycles, that's what they do.)

 

[TenshiNo]

You are confusing apps "running" with simply being listed in the "Recents" menu. Just because an app is listed under Recents, does not mean that it is even loaded into RAM, let alone "running" (actually executing code). Most [properly written] apps go into a "sleep" mode when they are no longer visible on the screen, but remain loaded in RAM so that they can quickly re-activate if you switch back to them. While it is true that swiping an app off the Recents menu can trigger that app being unloaded from RAM, the Recents menu is not an accurate reflection of what apps are actually loaded in RAM.

If you hit the Power button and select "Power Off" or "Restart" then everything is getting removed from RAM. Period.

There are apps in the Play Store that will allow you to see what apps are actually loaded into memory and their current state, such as "cached (sleeping), running, service (doesn't even shutdown, because it's "listening" for a message from the internet), etc. Realistically, though, there is really no reason for you to need to know 99.9% of the time.

Keep in mind, too, that some apps hook into the Android "event" notifications, so that they get launched automatically as soon as the device boots up, so there may be apps loaded into memory immediately after bootup that you did not specifically launch. I do not believe these "launch at boot" apps actually affect the Recents menu, though.