5 Ways To Prevent Other People From Accessing Apps On Your iPhone.
Smartphones contain a lot of information, such as pictures and videos of our friends and families, but they also contain important applications that we use to send and receive official letters, banking transactions, and more.
While these apps make things easier and make our lives more convenient, we tend to worry about letting someone else use our iPhones so they don’t have access to our apps and personal information. Worse for parents whose kids are constantly using their phones to play games or use kids apps because they fear kids might see things they are not allowed to see or delete important files or media.
Fortunately, you don’t have to worry anymore, as there are ways to restrict access to your personal information and block apps completely.
How to lock apps on your iPhone
You can simply lock your iPhone and prevent anyone else from accessing it, but you can lock apps and keep the most important ones safe even if someone else can access your device.
The iPhone doesn’t have a system-wide app lock feature, which means you can only lock a certain number of apps. However, before the release of iOS 12, it had built-in app restrictions, which can now be found in the new Screen Time utility.
Also, you cannot completely hide apps from view, but you can use several hacks to secure app settings and achieve the same result.
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Here are five different ways to block apps on iPhone and prevent others from accessing your personal information.
Set content and privacy restrictions
In Screen Time, you can block or restrict certain apps and features using the Content and Privacy Restrictions setting on iPhone. In this way, you can restrict privacy settings as well as settings for purchases, downloads, and explicit content.
Go to Settings on iPhone and tap Screen Time.
Click “This is my [device]” or “This is my child’s [device]]”.
If you are a parent and do not want your child to change your settings, click Use Screen Time Password and create a password, then re-enter it to confirm. If it’s your child’s iPhone, follow the instructions to Parental Passcode and then enter the passcode.
Back on the home screen, tap Content and Privacy Restrictions and enter a password (different from the one you use to unlock your iPhone).
Turn on the “Content and privacy” switch / set the color to green
For older iPhones with iOS 11 or earlier, choose Settings General Restrictions Enable Restrictions.
Enter your new password and you’ll see a variety of options, including:
- Allow, where you can block third-party apps like FaceTime, Safari, and Siri, but not download apps. This is a temporary way to remove apps from the home screen, but you can only access them after re-permission.
- Allowed Content, where you can set parental control over what others can view
- Privacy so that no one can change your privacy settings.
- Allow Changes to lock various options such as volume limits and more.
Guided Entry
Also known as app password lock, this method comes in handy if someone is using a specific app on your iPhone and you don’t want them to dare to other apps. You can set up a Guided Access lock and prevent them from leaving the application they are currently using.
Open Settings, then tap General Accessibility.
Then click on Guided Access and switch it to green or ON.
Click Password Settings
Click Set Guided Access Password and enter a new password.
To start a Guided Access session, open the app and press the Home button three times. If you’re using an iPhone X, press the side button three times. Once there, you can do any of the following:
- Draw a circle around the areas of the screen that you want to be non-responsive, and then press Start.
- Click Options to disable certain features such as keyboard, touchscreen, volume buttons, and more, or set a time limit for sessions.
When you’re done, end your session by pressing the Home button (or the side button for iPhone X) three times, enter your Guided Access password, and click End.
Set time limits
If you want to reduce the time your kids or other people spend on your iPhone, you can set screen time limits, which will block certain apps or limit the time they spend on them.
Go to Settings Screen Time Application Restrictions.
Click Add Constraint
In the list of apps, select the app you want to restrict access to and click the checkbox next to its category
Select a time limit (how long the limit will last).
Finally, click Add (top right) to save your settings.
Touch ID and Face ID
Fingerprint or Touch ID and Face ID are secure ways to access your iPhone versus using passwords. They’re also handy for locking your screen and protecting apps, especially if you’re not near your device and it’s unlocked or someone else is using it and you’re worried that it might wander around and view sensitive information.
To block apps using Touch ID, open Settings. Click Touch ID & Password and enter your password.
Turn on (green) the apps you want to block. You can also tap More Apps to see a list of apps that can use Touch ID or Face ID for authentication.
Note. These steps apply to the Apple Pay, iTunes, and App Store apps. Any other apps from the App Store can be locked by going to Settings Settings (or Privacy) and clicking Lock (it can also be referred to as Password, Screen Lock, Password, “Touch ID Lock” or similar).
Today, more and more apps offer the option to lock using Touch ID or Face ID, while others still offer a password option.
Third-Party App Locker
There are many third-party apps that can be used to restrict access to apps on iPhone using a password or biometric ID. However, if your iPhone is not jailbroken, this may not be the best option as it may have security and performance issues.
You might also consider using a third-party storage app to hide files such as pictures or notes and only grant access after you enter the correct password, or to lock specific files rather than the entire app.
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