Lending your phone to someone: using a guest or second profile on Android

“Can I borrow your phone? Mine’s dead.” It’s a reasonable request from a friend, a colleague or a house guest, and it usually means a call, a quick search or a ride booking. But your phone opens onto everything: messages, banking, your photo library. Handing it over unlocked means trusting someone not to scroll, and not to tap the wrong thing by accident.

Android has a better answer on many phones: a separate profile that is, in effect, a different phone.

What to do now

For a quick call or one app, pin it. App pinning keeps the screen on one app until you unlock it again. Turn it on once under Settings, then Security (search Settings for “app pinning” if you can’t find it). Then open the app, open recent apps, tap the app’s icon and choose Pin. Make sure it’s set to ask for your PIN before unpinning.

For longer, switch to a guest. Swipe down twice from the top of the screen and tap the user icon, then Add guest or Guest. The phone switches to a fresh profile with none of your apps, accounts or photos. Hand it over.

Decide about calls and texts. The profile settings let you choose whether a guest or second user can make calls and send messages. Allow calls if that’s why they need it.

Switch back when you get the phone. Swipe down, tap the user icon and choose yourself. Your profile opens with your normal screen lock. Remove the guest, or start fresh next time, so their session isn’t kept.

For someone who borrows often, add a user. A partner who sometimes uses your phone, or a parent sharing a tablet, can have a full profile of their own: Settings, then System, then Multiple users, then Add user. They set up their own account and apps. The official help notes some steps only work on Android 14 and later, and that only the phone’s owner can add users.

On iPhone, use guided access. There are no profiles, but guided access keeps the phone in one app until you enter a code. Turn it on under Settings, then Accessibility, then Guided Access, then triple-click the side button in the app you want to lend.

What doesn’t help

• Watching over their shoulder. It works until you’re distracted. A guest profile doesn’t need you to watch.
• Closing the gallery first. It’s one swipe away in recent apps.
• Hiding photos in an album that opens with your screen lock. If you’ve already unlocked the phone to hand it over, a hidden album is only hidden from casual browsing.
• Lending the phone with your profile and just asking them not to look. Most people won’t. Notifications, memories and widgets can still show something on their own.

When profiles aren’t available

Some phones don’t offer multiple users. If Add user or Guest doesn’t appear, the help says the device can’t add users. Use app pinning, and keep private photos behind a lock that isn’t your screen lock: a locked folder with private space on Android 15 and later, or a vault app. See Android private space explained. For handing over a phone just to show one picture, see show one photo without them scrolling.

Where a vault helps

Profiles protect you when you remember to use them. A vault protects you when you don’t. Silo, coming soon to iPhone and Android, opens with its own PIN, separate from your phone’s, and locks itself whenever the screen turns off and, by default, as soon as you leave it. Even if you lend your phone in your own profile, the photos you’ve imported stay encrypted behind Silo’s lock, and the app switcher shows a cover instead of your last photo.