Your phone is a one-stop shop for a lot of your personal information, from day-to-day activities logged in your calendar and email to financial data accessed via banking apps. If you let someone else use your device—whether you’re showing a friend a collection of photos or allowing a stranger to make an emergency call—there’s a lot you don’t want them to be able to see.
If you’re an iPhone user, there are several features you can enable to prevent others from snooping around your device.
Use Guided Access
If you don’t want someone using your device to see anything else on it, you can turn on Guided Access, which limits them to a single app (such as Phone or Photos). This essentially locks down your screen and prevents navigation outside of the specific features you make available.
First, go to Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access and toggle the feature on. Tap Passcode Settings to set up a specific passcode or flip the Face ID toggle to use biometrics to end Guided Access sessions.
To start a Guided Access session before handing over your phone, open the app and triple click the side button. You can circle specific areas of the screen you don’t want to respond to touch (such as swipes through Photos). Tap Session Settings at the bottom to set a time limit, disable the keyboard, and manage button press options. Then tap Start.
To end a Guided Access session, triple-click the side button and enter your passcode or double-click and authenticate with Face ID.
You can also lock or hide specific apps
Some mobile apps, like financial apps and password managers, already require you to log in or authenticate with your username and password combo or device biometrics every time you open them. You can also lock down other individual apps on iPhone so Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode is required for access. To lock an app from your home screen, touch and hold the icon until the quick actions menu appears, then tap Require Face ID.
Alternatively, you can hide apps so others cannot see them on your device (let alone open them) unless you authenticate using Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode. To hide an app, tap and hold the icon on the home screen and tap Require Face ID in the quick actions menu. Tap Hide and Require Face ID > Hide App. If you need to open a hidden app, swipe left on your home screen to reach your App Library, locate the Hidden folder at the bottom, and tap and authenticate to unlock the folder followed by the app.
(Note that some native iOS apps, including Calculator, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Find My, Maps, Shortcuts, and Settings, cannot be locked, and system apps that come preinstalled cannot be hidden.)
