How to lock and hide apps on iPhone, and what it doesn't hide

Handing your phone to someone to show them a photo, a route or a recipe is ordinary. Wondering whether they’ll tap into your messages or your banking app while they hold it is ordinary too. iPhone has a built-in answer: you can lock individual apps, and go a step further and hide them. It’s quick to set up and works well for its purpose, which is a little narrower than it first seems.

Lock or hide: the difference

Locking an app means it asks for face unlock, fingerprint or your passcode each time it opens. It stays on your Home Screen. The official guide says information inside a locked app doesn’t appear elsewhere, such as notification previews, search, suggestions and call history.

Hiding an app locks it and also removes it from your Home Screen, App Library and search results. It moves to a Hidden folder at the bottom of App Library, which itself needs authentication to open.

Opening a locked app doesn’t unlock it for good. It locks again as soon as you quit it.

How to lock an app

1. Go to the Home Screen.
2. Touch and hold the app until its quick actions menu opens.
3. Tap the option to require face unlock, fingerprint or passcode (its label names your unlock method).
4. Tap it again to confirm and lock the app.

To remove the lock, touch and hold the app again and tap the option that stops requiring authentication.

How to hide an app

1. Touch and hold the app until its quick actions menu opens.
2. Tap the option to require authentication.
3. Choose to hide and require authentication, confirm it’s you, then tap Hide App.

The app disappears from the Home Screen. To open it, swipe left past all your Home Screen pages to App Library, scroll to the bottom, tap Hidden and authenticate.

To stop hiding it, open the Hidden folder, touch and hold the app, and turn off the authentication requirement. It reappears near the top of App Library.

What can and can’t be locked or hidden

• Most apps can be locked, including the built-in photos and messaging apps. A few built-in apps can’t, such as Settings, Camera, Calculator and Clock.
• Only apps you downloaded can be hidden. Built-in apps can’t be hidden, and neither can the app you’ve set as your default web browser.
• The status stays on that iPhone. It doesn’t sync to your other devices.
• Teen accounts in a family group can lock and hide apps, but a parent can still see the app was downloaded and how long it’s used.

Where hidden apps still show

Hiding is not invisibility. The official guide notes that a hidden app’s name can still appear:

• in Screen Time,
• in battery usage by app, in Settings,
• in your app store purchase history.

Settings also has a list of hidden apps, under Apps, then Hidden Apps, which needs authentication to open. Someone determined, with time and your passcode, can find them.

The real limit: your passcode

Every lock here opens with your iPhone passcode. That’s convenient, and it’s also the weak point. If a partner, parent, child or friend has seen you type your passcode, they can open every locked app and the Hidden folder.

That makes app locking ideal for the moments it was designed for: handing over your phone for a minute, a child playing a game, a friend scrolling your photos. It’s much weaker against someone who knows your passcode. For that, see what to do if your partner knows your PIN, and consider changing your passcode to one they haven’t seen.

If you’re worried about someone checking up on you more broadly, Safety Check reviews who you share with and which devices are signed in.

Locking photos specifically

Locking the Photos app protects the whole library. The Photos app’s own Hidden album keeps chosen photos out of the main grid; see how to hide photos on iPhone. Both open with your passcode, and both leave the photos in your normal photo backup.

Silo, coming soon to iPhone and Android, takes a different approach: imported photos are encrypted on the phone and open with Silo’s own PIN, which can differ from your iPhone passcode.