Learn how to secure your sensitive iPhone or iPad apps and their data from prying eyes by locking these apps with Face ID, Touch ID, or device passcode.
Adding a system-wide passcode is enough to prevent intruders from going inside your apps and seeing private stuff.
However, if you regularly hand over your unlocked iPhone or iPad to kids, family members, colleagues, or friends and don’t want them to access certain private apps, iOS offers a new built-in lock option to secure them.
You can protect such personal apps and their content from others by securing them behind Face ID, Touch ID, or device passcode. Just make sure your iPhone or iPad is running iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or newer.
How to lock apps on iPhone and iPad
- Make sure you’re on the Home Screen or App Library on your device.
- Touch and hold the app you want to lock and choose Require Face ID or Touch ID.
- Select Require Face ID to confirm. Some apps may also offer the option to both hide and lock the app.
Five things that happen after you lock an app on your iPhone or iPad
Once you lock an app, iOS does the following to ensure others who are using your device cannot go inside the locked app and see its content:
1) You or someone else using your device will need to authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID to open that app and go inside it.
If that fails, iOS prompts to enter the device passcode. Note that you may not get the option to enter a locked app using device passcode in iOS 26 or if you have Stolen Device Protection enabled.
Tip: If your spouse or kids know your iPhone passcode or you have added their face to Face ID or finger to Touch ID, they can easily get inside the locked app. You can prevent this by removing their face or fingerprints and changing the device passcode.
2) Authentication is needed every time you swipe up to go out of that locked app and want to go in again.
3) Face ID or Touch ID is required to use that app with Siri. For instance, if I lock the Music app and say, “Hey Siri, play my Office playlist,” it will ask me to authenticate with Face ID first.
4) Content from that app no longer shows in iOS Spotlight Search. Note that you can easily stop an app’s content from showing in Search without locking it.
5) Notification from that app will not show the preview. Once again, you can prevent an app from showing the notification preview without locking it.
Important: Locked app data can still show up inside other apps
Imagine you lock the Photos app on your iPhone. This means others cannot get inside it to view your pictures or find them in Spotlight Search. However, if they are tech-savvy, they can go inside WhatsApp, X (Twitter), Compress Photos, EXIF Metadata, Instagram, and other apps with access to your photo library and see your pictures and videos.
If you want to stop that, you can do one of the following:
- Lock that second app as well. For instance, you can lock WhatsApp, Instagram, and others.
- Go to iOS Settings > Privacy & Security > Photos > select the app and choose None or Limited Access. Apple has thoughtfully ensured that Face ID authentication is needed to make these changes.
Unlock apps on iPhone or iPad
Simply touch and hold an app icon, choose Don’t Require Face ID, and authenticate with Face ID.
Also, check out: 5 optional iPhone features Apple provides to strengthen your privacy and security