If you want to protect your app settings, or prevent other people from accessing your apps, or just lock apps, in this article we will show you how to lock apps on your iPhone.
If you do not know how to lock your iPhone apps, you should know that iPhone does not have an official way to lock apps, unlike Android devices; However, using alternative methods to lock apps on the iPhone is easy. The app lock feature on the iPhone is one of the features that has been around on Android smartphones for many years; But in the last few years, it has never made its way to iOS versions. Fortunately, there are simple alternatives to using this feature on the iPhone, which we will explain in this article.
Lock on iPhone apps
Apple has no official way to lock sensitive apps like Photos with a password; But there is a solution that works with the Screen Time feature that was first introduced in iOS 12. If you really want to make sure one of your apps is out of reach, you can use the Apple App Limits feature.
- Open the Settings app .
- Select Screen Time .
- Select the Use Screen Time Passcode option to make sure the Screen Time is enabled and the password set to it.
- Tap App Limits and then tap Add Limit .
- Select the category you want. For example, to lock the Photos app, check the Creativity category.
- First tap on your favorite app and then on Next .
- In the slider to select the time, select 1 minute.
- Tap Add .
- Turn on the Block at End of Limit option .
- If you want to add other apps, go through the Add Limit steps again; Otherwise, exit the Screen Time interface.
When the time limit you set expires, you will be told that your application time is up. At this time, you have the opportunity to continue using the program for one minute; But after one minute, you must enter your Screen Time password to continue using the program. There is no way to bypass the password. This prevents another person from being able to open the password-protected program.
You can lock any application except the phone application with a password; Because there is no option to turn off access to the Phone app. For apps like Messages or FaceTime, you need to edit the Always Allowed section in Screen Time to enable the restriction.
You can also disable access to messages and FaceTime. When access to messages through App Limits is disabled, devices that use iCloud for Screen Time will not be able to send or receive messages. Also, this will not allow you to see notifications of locked applications; So, keep this in mind when blocking social media apps.
Lock apps on iPhone using Guided Access
Guided Access is another application locking option on the iPhone that prevents you from exiting applications that you have already opened. Locking apps in iPhone’s Guided Access is great and lets you lock your device to use certain apps.
This method is useful when you want to give your phone to someone else to use a particular application; But you are worried that he will enter other programs without knowing it.
Follow the steps below to enable Guided Access:
- Go to Settings and select Accessibility .
- Select Guided Access and enable it.
- Go to Passcode settings and set Guided Access Passcode .
- To activate this feature, just press the power button or touch ID three times to activate it in any application you are in.
- To exit this mode, press the power button or the touch ID three times again until the Guided mode ends. Then, enter the password and click End in the upper right corner.
How to use the locked application
Once you have enabled App Limits to lock apps that you want to be out of reach, you can tap Ask for More Time to access the app . Then, you have to enter your password so that you can unlock it for fifteen minutes (Approve for 15 minutes) or one hour (Approve for an hur) or the rest of the day (Approve all day).
Note that there is no way to re-lock the app after confirming it for 15 minutes; Unless you reset the app restrictions from scratch.
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We hope you find this tutorial useful. If you have a question about locking iPhone apps or find a better way to do so, please let us and other Wironal users know.
