Android private space explained: what it hides, and what it doesn't

Most ways of hiding photos work at the level of one app: a locked album, a hidden folder, a vault. Private space works one level up. It gives you a second, sealed-off area of the phone where whole apps live, and when you lock it, those apps and everything they hold drop out of sight. That makes it powerful, but it also changes what you can lose.

What private space is

Private space arrived with Android 15. You install apps into it the same way you install them normally, and each app inside keeps its own data, separate from the copy of the same app in your main profile. A browser inside private space has its own history. A gallery or camera app inside it keeps its own photos.

You need three things to use it:

• Android 15 or later.
• A phone whose maker supports it.
• A personal phone. Managed work phones can’t add one.

What it hides while locked

When private space is locked, the apps inside are stopped. They don’t run in the background, and they don’t send notifications. They are hidden from:

• the app drawer and launcher,
• the recent apps screen,
• search on the phone,
• the app list in Settings,
• the photo picker that other apps use to ask for your photos.

That last point matters for photos. A photo saved by an app inside private space doesn’t appear when a messaging app or a website asks you to pick a picture. You can go further and hide the private space entry itself, so the app drawer doesn’t show it at all. You then open it by searching for its name.

What it doesn’t hide

The official help is unusually candid here. In some situations you can’t hide that a private space exists:

• from someone who installs apps on your phone and can see where they go,
• from someone who connects your phone to a computer,
• from apps that are able to detect it.

So private space is good at keeping a nosy person out of your things during everyday use. It isn’t a way to deny the space exists to someone examining the phone closely.

How to set it up

Menu names vary by phone maker, but on most phones:

1. Open Settings, then Security & privacy, then Private space. If you can’t find it, search Settings for “private space”.
2. Confirm with your screen lock.
3. Choose a lock: your screen lock, or a new lock used only for private space. Pick a new lock if anyone else knows your phone’s PIN or pattern.
4. Choose whether to hide the private space when it’s locked.
5. Install the apps you want inside it.

The risks to plan for

Private space protects data by isolating it, and isolation cuts both ways.

• No restore from backup. A private space isn’t restored when you restore your phone from a backup. If the phone is lost, broken or reset, what was only inside private space is gone.
• Deleting it deletes everything. Removing private space removes its apps and their data, with no backup.
• Forgetting a separate lock. If you choose a separate lock and forget it, plan on losing the contents. Write the lock somewhere safe.

The safe habit is to keep a second copy of anything you’d hate to lose, somewhere you control, and to check now and then that you can still open it.

Private space, a locked album or a vault?

They solve different problems, and they combine well.

• A locked album in a gallery app hides photos inside that one app, and usually opens with your normal screen lock.
• Private space hides whole apps, can have its own lock, and keeps their photos out of other apps’ reach.
• An encrypting vault app hides files and also stores them encrypted with a key from your own PIN. You can read more in how photo vault apps work.

You can install a vault app inside private space for two layers: one lock to open the space, another to open the vault. For a side-by-side of the built-in options on Android, see how to hide photos on Android. If you share the phone with someone, a separate user profile may suit you better, as described in lending your phone with a guest profile.

Silo, coming soon to iPhone and Android, encrypts everything on the phone with a key from its own PIN, so it works inside or outside private space.