Want to secure private apps from unauthorized access by family members, friends, or coworkers? Learn how to hide apps and their widgets from your iPhone or iPad Home Screen and access them only after secure Face ID or Touch ID authentication.
iOS 18 and iOS 26 offer a built-in way to hide apps and secure them behind a lock. Among other things (see the full list below), notifications and calls from hidden apps are blocked, further preventing them from being visible to anyone other than you.
Hide apps on iPhone or iPad
- Unlock your iOS device and stay on the Home Screen or go to the App Library.
- Touch and hold an app icon and choose Require Face ID or Require Touch ID.
- If the app supports hiding, which all third-party apps and a few Apple apps do, tap the Hide and Require Face ID and authenticate using Face ID. You won’t see this option if the app doesn’t support hiding.
- You’ll now see a “Hide app name” screen. Read it and tap Hide App.
You cannot hide some core Apple apps, even though many of them can be deleted. However, you can hide Apple apps like iMovie, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, Apple Store, and Apple Music Classical.
When you touch and hold the icon for an app that can’t be hidden, you’ll only see the option to Require Face ID to lock it. But note that some core iOS apps, such as Camera, Maps, Shortcuts, Watch, Find My, Clock, Calculator, and Contacts, can’t be locked or hidden.
What happens after you hide an iPhone or iPad app
1) You or someone with access to your iPhone or iPad must authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID to reveal your hidden apps and subsequently open them. If Face ID or Touch ID fails a few times, iOS will show a prompt to enter the device passcode, but if Stolen Device Protection is enabled, you won’t get the fallback option to enter the device passcode if Face ID authentication fails.
Note: Make sure you haven’t added fingerprints or Face ID of other people to your iPhone.
2) The app is removed from the Home Screen. If you’ve added multiple icons for that app on your Home Screens, they are all removed.
3) If you’ve added widgets for that app to your Home Screen or Lock Screen, they’ll be removed. You won’t be able to see that hidden app when you try to add its widget.
4) You’ll not get notifications or phone calls from this app. For instance, if you hide WhatsApp, Slack, or Skype on your iPhone, you won’t receive their new notifications and calls. However, you can see the new messages and alerts as usual when you go inside the hidden app.
5) Current and future apps you conceal will go inside the Hidden section of the App Library..
6) You won’t see the hidden apps listed in iPhone or iPad Settings > Apps or other places like Notifications. However, the hidden apps will continue to show up in some spots in the Settings app, such as Privacy & Security and Cellular.
- Go to the iOS App Library and tap the Hidden folder at the bottom.
- Authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID.
- Concealed app icons will become visible now. Tap to open and use one.
There are a couple of easy ways to do this.
Don’t Require Face ID
- Go to the App Library and access your hidden apps.
- Touch and hold the app icon and tap Don’t Require Face ID to unhide the app. This app will now be removed from the Hidden folder. In some cases, its app icon will be added back to a Home Screen page, but don’t count on it.
Add back to Home Screen
- Go to the App Library and reveal the concealed apps in the Hidden folder.
- Touch and hold a hidden app icon and choose Add to Home Screen.
- Tap Unhide App to confirm.
After you unhide an app, it should once again become visible in all spots like before, such as Settings > Apps.
You need to hide apps individually on all your devices
I hid a couple of apps, such as iDB, Slack, and YouTube, on my iPhone. These apps are also installed on my iPad, but they were not hidden there. In other words, hiding apps is specific to that device only, and these changes don’t sync to your other iPhones and iPads signed in to the same Apple Account.
Difference between locking and hiding iPhone apps
You can lock an app without hiding it, but you cannot hide an app without locking it.
After you lock an app, biometric authentication or a passcode is needed to go inside it. However, the app continues to show on the Home Screen, and you get their notifications without the preview.
Other tips to hide an iPhone app from plain sight
If your iPhone or iPad is not running the latest software or if you’re looking for simpler ways to hide apps, you can rely on these tips:
- Remove sensitive apps and their widgets from the Home Screen. After that, they’ll only be visible in App Library and Spotlight Search.
- Prevent an app from showing in iOS Spotlight Search. You can also stop their in-app content from appearing there.
- You can add apps to folders and even create multiple pages inside the folder. Place the app you want to hide on the last page of the folder.
- Hide a Home Screen page that will conceal all apps on it from plain sight.
- You can also restrict some built-in Apple apps by going to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Allowed Apps & Features.
- As the last option, you can delete an app. You always have the option to re-download it for free from the App Store when needed.