What does Private Browsing on iPhone actually hide?

1. 1Open Safari and tap the tabs button (two overlapping squares).
2. 2Tap the tab group name at the bottom, then choose Private.
3. 3Tap + to open a private tab. The address bar turns dark to show you are in Private Browsing.

To leave it, open the tabs button again, choose the tab group name and pick a normal group. Private tabs stay open until you close them, so close them before you hand the phone over.

• It hides the session from other people using your phone: pages are not added to Safari history, and cookies and AutoFill information from that session are not kept.
• It does not hide your activity from the Wi-Fi network you are on. The owner of that network, such as a workplace, school or café, may see which sites you connect to.
• It does not hide your activity from your internet provider or mobile carrier, and it does not stop the websites you visit from seeing your IP address.
• It does not make you anonymous. If you log in to a site, that site knows who you are in private mode too.

A VPN moves who can see your traffic from the network to the VPN company; it is a separate tool, not part of Private Browsing.

• Files you download in a private tab are kept in the Downloads folder in the Files app, and photos you save go to Photos. Private Browsing does not remove them.
• Bookmarks and Reading List items you add stay in Safari.
• Open private tabs are still there for the next person who unlocks your phone, unless they are locked or closed. Recent iOS versions can require Face ID or your passcode to reopen private tabs: look for the Safari settings under Settings, then Apps, then Safari (older versions list Safari directly in Settings), and the option to require Face ID to unlock Private Browsing.
• Other apps keep their own records. A search in another app, a message you send and a screenshot you take are not covered. See how to handle sensitive screenshots on iPhone.

Lockboxy is an iPhone app whose vault includes a Private Browser tab. It is a browser inside the vault, so it opens only after you unlock the vault with its passcode.

1. 1Open Lockboxy, unlock the vault and open the Private Browser tab.
2. 2Type a web address or a search phrase and go.
3. 3Pages you visit are recorded in a Recent list inside the vault, encrypted like the rest of it. Open the history screen and use Clear History to delete every entry for good; it does not go to the Recycle Bin. The list keeps at most 200 visits and drops the oldest.
4. 4A file you download from a page is saved into the vault's Files area, encrypted, not into your iPhone's Downloads folder. Downloads from sites that need you to be logged in may fail.
5. 5The browser asks the web view not to keep cookies and clears its cache and history whenever you leave the screen or the vault locks.

Bookmarks you save in the Private Browser live in the vault too, not in Safari. It still needs an internet connection and it does not hide anything from your network, carrier or the sites you visit, exactly as with Private Browsing. Its job is keeping the record off your phone's normal places. How to tell if someone went through your iPhone covers the other places a person might look.

• Private Browsing in Safari is free and built in.
• Files you download into Lockboxy count towards the Files limit: the free plan holds up to 10 files and Premium removes that limit. Prices are on the Premium page and the app shows the exact price before you buy.
• If you forget the vault passcode and did not set a Recovery Key (Premium), nobody can open the vault, including us, so the browsing history in it would be lost too.
• Apple can rename menus between iOS versions. If a step does not match your screen, use Search in Settings.