How to Lock Apps on your iPhone with a Password or Touch ID

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Have you been looking to restrict access to your personal and important information/business on your iPhone? Maybe from kids, invasive friends, or even a nosy partner? Well, you lock apps on your iPhone to do just that. When you lock apps, you limit access by password-protecting apps.

Unfortunately, it is not possible, yet, to lock just one specific app on your iPhone. Lots of  Apple users have proposed this idea to the brand but there has been no update regarding the feature. A simple solution to this is putting a passcode on your iPhone itself – which you should already be doing. But there are other scenarios that require more than that, for example, when you want to hand your cell phone over to someone, but want to limit them to only one app. Let’s walk you through all the different scenarios.

How to lock apps on your iPhone
You can lock apps on your iPhone to protect your personal information

One of the ways to lock apps on your iPhone is to lock the person you want to give your iPhone to into one specific app

What you can do, in terms of keeping whatever information you have secured, is lock whoever is using your device to that particular app. This means that every other app will be locked except the one that you want the person to have access to.

  • Go to your Settings
  • Tap on Accessibility
  • Select “Guided Access”
  • Toggle on the feature
  • Select “Passcode Settings”, to create a PIN, and re-enter it, or you can opt for Face ID, either one you pick will serve as the means to disable the mode. You can also turn on Face ID or Touch ID as a way to end a Guided Access session.
  • Or to start a Guided Access session with Siri*, open the app that you want, then tell Siri “Turn on Guided Access.”

When you have completed all of these, launch the app that you want to lock into Guided Access mode. Tap on the side button of your device three times or the home button, for older iPhone models. A Guided Access interface will appear. Here you can select areas on your screen that you want to disable to prevent the person from using specific options.

You can also disable the side button, volume button, and input options when you tap on the options icon and opt to disable them. That is if there is just one particular thing you want them to see, like a video. 

When you do want to revert things to normal, you can either click the side button three times, scan your face with Face ID or enter the passcode you set when you set up Guided Access.

Another way to lock apps on your iPhone is to lock an app, or folder using a third-party app

While you can’t lock specific apps on your iPhone as a feature, you can access this feature by downloading a third-party app on the store. There are not as many app lock applications, as android users have, that an iPhone user can work with. However, there are a few credible ones. A few trusted ones are BioProtect, Folder Lock, iProtect, e.t.c. As it is for most apps and platforms now, you might have to purchase in-app features for a better experience and better options.

Note: you can also now protect personal and sensitive information that you have written in your Notes app. You can either password the notes or secure them with Touch ID. With Touch ID, you can sleep well at night knowing that no one will have access to your notes. Well… that is if whoever is trying to get that information is not smart enough to just put your finger on the phone, lol, you should be good.

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