How to lock apps on iPhone: Face ID lock, hidden apps and older-iOS workarounds

1. 1On the Home Screen, touch and hold the icon of the app you want to lock.
2. 2Tap Require Face ID (or Require Touch ID / Require Passcode).
3. 3Tap Require Face ID again and authenticate.

From now on the app asks for Face ID every time it opens. While it is locked, its content no longer shows in Spotlight search, Siri suggestions or notification previews — you see that a notification arrived, not what it says.

To remove the lock, touch and hold the icon again and choose Don't Require Face ID.

If you would rather the app were not visible at all:

1. 1Touch and hold the app icon and tap Require Face ID.
2. 2Choose Hide and Require Face ID, then confirm.

The app disappears from the Home Screen and moves into a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library, which itself only opens with Face ID. A few limits to know:

• Only apps you downloaded can be hidden; apps that ship with iOS cannot.
• A hidden app does not show notifications or incoming call alerts.
• The Hidden folder is still visible in the App Library — people can see that hidden apps exist, just not which ones.

On iOS 17 and earlier you can approximate an app lock with Screen Time:

1. 1Open Settings → Screen Time and turn it on if needed.
2. 2Choose Use Screen Time Passcode and set a code that is different from your iPhone passcode.
3. 3Go to App Limits → Add Limit, select the app, and set the limit to 1 minute.
4. 4Make sure Block at End of Limit is on, then tap Add.

After a minute of use each day, the app shows a time-limit screen and asks for the Screen Time passcode to continue. It is clumsy — the first minute is free, and it is designed for parental controls rather than privacy — but it works on any iPhone.

Sometimes the real goal is not locking one app, but making sure someone stays inside one app. Guided Access does exactly that (the guide to lending your iPhone covers the whole routine).

1. 1Open Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access and turn it on. Set a Guided Access passcode.
2. 2Open the app you want to hand over (for example, Photos showing a single album, or a game).
3. 3Triple-click the side button (or the Home button) and tap Start.

The person holding the phone cannot leave that app until you triple-click again and enter the passcode. It is the most reliable way to show someone one thing without exposing everything else.

Locking an app controls who can open it on this phone. It does not change where the data lives:

• Your iPhone passcode is always accepted as a fallback for Face ID, so anyone who knows it can open a locked app.
• Data synced to the cloud — chat history, photo backups, notes — is still reachable from your other devices and accounts.
• Photos you saved from a locked chat app usually also sit in the Photos library, which is not locked.
• Locking the app does not encrypt its content separately; protection comes from the device's own encryption, which is unlocked whenever the phone is.

So for most people the right setup is: a strong iPhone passcode that nobody else knows, Face ID locks on the few apps that matter, and a separate place for the files that must stay private even if the passcode leaks.

Instead of locking a dozen apps, many people find it simpler to gather the sensitive things in one place with its own lock. Lockboxy is a vault for photos, videos, files, notes, passwords and contacts, with a passcode separate from your phone's, and everything inside is encrypted with AES-256 on the device.

• By default it opens on its own passcode screen. If you prefer, you can turn on an Opening screen in Settings so the app opens to a working calculator, notes, weather or tools screen instead — it is off unless you enable it, and the app explains where the passcode goes.
• Premium adds a few extras relevant here, such as Face ID unlock, alternate home-screen icons, Intruder Selfie after repeated wrong passcodes, and web shortcuts that open the web version of chat services inside the vault's private browser (they are shortcuts, not clones of the original apps).

As with any encrypted vault, the passcode is the key: if you forget it and have no Recovery Key, the content cannot be recovered by anyone.