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This may have happened to you. You hand your phone over to your friend to show them one app and before you know it they’ve opened another app like your photos and have started scrolling through to see what gems they may be able to uncover.
Here’s what you need to do so that people can’t access your other apps and will lock people into only one app if you were to ever hand over you phone.
How to lock your apps on an iPhone
How to set up limited access to your iPhone’s apps
- Click Settings
- Scroll down to Accessibility
- Go to bottom and click Guided Access
- On the next screen, go to the Guided Access row and slide toggle on. Also toggle Accessibility Shortcut on.
- Now click the “Back” text link at the top to go back one screen and click the Accessibility Shortcut at the bottom of the screen
- Now select “Guided Access”. You’ll note in the screengrab below I also have Magnifier on so that it is handy for me.
Another way to keep prying eyes away from your iPhone here
Here’s what you need to do right before you give your iPhone to your nosy friend
- While you’re in an app you want to show someone, triple tap the power button on the right side of your iPhone
- Up will come your Accessibility Shortcuts
- Click the Guided Access row
- Click the “Start” text link in the upper right hand corner of your screen
- Your phone is now locked to this app and you can go ahead and hand over your phone to your nosy friend!
How to deactivate the limited access feature on your iPhone
- Once your friend hands back your iPhone, once again, click the power button 3 times.
- Click the Guided Access row
- Now enter your iPhone passcode
- Click the “End” text link in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
How to lock your apps on an Android device
For Android 10 and Android 9.0 PIE devices,
- Go to Settings
- Click Biometrics and security
- Click on Other security settings
- Click Advanced
- Turn Pin windows on
- Select Ask for PIN before unpinning
- Now go to the square “Overview” icon at the bottom of your screen and tap the app icons you want to pin
- A prompt will appear and click the bottom row that says “Pin this app”
Here are third party apps you may also consider:
- Calculator Vault – allows you to hide apps within a folder that appears to be another app.
- Apex Launcher – puts a new interface on your phone which includes password protected folders you can set up. These folders can be set up to be disguised as other apps and only you would know which is the true app.
- AppLock – You can store apps in this password protected vault. Someone who picks up your phone can see this vault, but would not be able to access the vault without a password.
How to lock your apps on a Samsung device
You can set up a secure folder built into a Samsung (Galaxy) that can be opened via a pin, password or FaceID. Here’s what you need to do
- Go to Settings
- Click Biometrics and security
- Click Secure Folder
- Set up the folder via the guided screens and set up a security code
- Select Secure folder from the app drawer and add apps
- After adding apps, select Lock and exit text in the upper right corner
- This secure folder can now be found in your App Drawer
- If someone tries to access this folder, it will prompt the user for a password.