How to tell if someone went through your iPhone

No. At the time of writing, iOS has no unlock history and no built-in photo of whoever typed a wrong passcode. After several wrong passcodes in a row the iPhone makes you wait before trying again, but it does not tell you about it later. Two things follow:

• If the person knew your passcode, unlocking left no special mark. You can only look at what they did once inside.
• Every clue below tells you when the phone was used and which apps were open. Matching that against where you were at the time is what turns a clue into an answer.

Go through these in order. Each takes a minute, and none of them changes anything on the phone:

1. 1Open Settings → Screen Time → See All App & Website Activity, then choose Day. The chart shows phone use hour by hour, and further down you see Pickups and which app was opened first after each pickup. Usage at an hour when the phone was not in your hands is the strongest clue. This only works if Screen Time was already turned on.
2. 2Open Settings → Battery. The chart for the last 24 hours shows when the screen was on; tap a bar to see which apps were active in that hour.
3. 3Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause to open the App Switcher. Apps you did not open recently may have been used by someone else.
4. 4Open Photos and look in Recently Deleted (under Utilities). Photos deleted in the last 30 days stay there. While you are in Photos, scroll to the most recent items and check for screenshots you did not take.
5. 5Open Safari, tap the bookmarks button and choose History. Then glance at Phone → Recents and Messages for calls, messages or sent photos you do not recognise.

This is easy to miss and worth checking, because it lets someone unlock the phone again later without knowing your passcode.

1. 1Open Settings → Face ID & Passcode and enter your passcode.
2. 2Look for the Set Up an Alternate Appearance option. If it is missing and you never added a second appearance yourself, someone else may have added their face. Tap Reset Face ID and set it up again with only your own face.
3. 3On an iPhone with Touch ID, open Settings → Touch ID & Passcode and delete any fingerprint you do not recognise.

It is also worth opening Settings → Privacy & Security → Safety Check. It lists the people and apps you share things with, such as your location, and the devices signed in to your Apple Account, and lets you stop any of them in one place.

The clues above tell you what happened. These steps make it less likely next time:

1. 1Change your passcode in Settings → Face ID & Passcode → Change Passcode. If the person may have watched you type, choose Passcode Options for a longer custom code.
2. 2Shorten Auto-Lock in Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock, so a phone left on the table locks within a minute.
3. 3On iOS 18, long-press an app such as Photos, Messages or your banking app and choose Require Face ID. The guide to locking apps on iPhone explains this and the options for older iOS.
4. 4When you lend the phone, use Guided Access so it stays inside one app. How to lend your iPhone without exposing your photos walks through it.

Lockboxy is a vault for photos, videos, files, notes, passwords and contacts, encrypted with AES-256 on the device. It is locked with its own passcode, separate from your iPhone passcode, so someone who has unlocked your phone still meets a second lock in front of the vault. Each wrong attempt in a row makes the next one wait longer, from 1 second up to 2 minutes.

With Premium, it can also record who tried:

1. 1Open Lockboxy and unlock it with your passcode, or with Face ID if you turned it on.
2. 2Open Settings in the vault and turn on Intruder Selfie. iOS then asks for Camera permission; Lockboxy asks for it only for this feature.
3. 3From then on, after 4 wrong passcodes in a row, the front camera takes a photo and a short video, saved with the time.
4. 4To review, open Settings → Security Log. It lists every failed unlock attempt and each time the vault was locked, with the photo and video when one was taken. You can delete a single entry or clear the whole log.

Everything captured is encrypted inside the vault and never uploaded. Keep the limits in mind: Lockboxy only sees attempts on its own passcode. It cannot tell you who unlocked your iPhone or opened another app, which is why the iPhone checks above still matter.

Stay practical. Change your iPhone passcode first, then reset Face ID if anything there looked wrong. If the person may have seen your Apple Account password, change it too in Settings → your name → Sign-In & Security.

Next, move what really should stay private out of the Photos library and into a place with its own lock. The guide to hiding photos on iPhone compares the Hidden album with a separate vault. If the phone itself might be gone rather than just borrowed, follow what to do if you lose your iPhone instead.

Free and Premium details, including which protections are in each plan, are on the Premium page.