How to hide apps on iPhone: the locked folder in App Library

The steps

These follow Apple’s iPhone User Guide for iOS 27.

1. Go to the Home Screen and find the app.
2. Touch and hold it until the Quick Actions menu opens.
3. Tap Require Face ID (Touch ID or Passcode on some models).
4. Of the two choices that appear, tap the one that also takes the app off the Home Screen.
5. Confirm with your face or passcode, then tap the button that moves the app.

The icon disappears. The app now sits in a locked folder at the bottom of App Library, and it no longer turns up in App Library’s list or in search. That is the whole change, per Apple’s guide.

Apps that can’t be moved

The menu will not offer the move for every app. Apple lists the exceptions:

• Apps that came with the iPhone, such as Photos, Messages and Notes. You can lock them, but they stay on screen.
• The app you set as your default web browser.
• An app marketplace you set as default, which exists only in the EU.

So you can take a banking app or a vault app off the Home Screen, but not Photos itself. For Photos there are two other doors: the locked album inside it, and a lock on the whole app, covered in locking an app with Face ID. Photos you move out of the Library into Apple’s separate locked album stay out of the Library, other albums and the Photos widget, and from iOS 16 that album asks for authentication to open.

What changes for someone holding your phone

Say a relative borrows the phone to look up a recipe. With the app moved:

• The Home Screen has no icon for it, and App Library’s categories don’t list it.
• Search returns nothing when they type its name.
• The locked folder still shows at the bottom of App Library. Anyone who scrolls down sees that a folder is there, though not what is in it until they pass Face ID or the passcode (Apple).
• Your passcode opens it. The check accepts the iPhone passcode, so anyone who has seen you type it can open the folder.

The last point is the one people miss. This is a privacy curtain for a casual glance, not a second lock. For handing the phone over for longer, read the guest mode guide.

Lighter ways to tidy the Home Screen

If you only want fewer icons, with no lock, App Library already does that. Apple’s App Library guide describes three options:

• Remove the icon only. Touch and hold, then remove it from the Home Screen. The app stays in App Library and in search.
• Turn off whole Home Screen pages. Touch and hold the wallpaper, tap the dots at the bottom and untick pages.
• Send new apps to App Library only, in Settings, Home Screen & App Library.

None of these keep anyone out. They only change where the icon sits.

Bringing an app back

1. Swipe left past your last Home Screen page to reach App Library.
2. Tap the locked folder at the bottom and pass Face ID or enter your passcode.
3. Touch and hold the app and tap Don’t Require Face ID, then confirm (Apple).

The app returns near the top of App Library, where you can drag it back to the Home Screen. Settings also keeps a full list of moved apps, under Apps, as Apple’s guide notes. If you are looking for an app you moved a while ago, the guide to finding apps that aren’t on the Home Screen walks every place it could be.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

You can move Sealed into the locked folder like any downloaded app. Its own lock sits behind that, so the folder is not the only door. Sealed has a passcode of its own, a gate inside the app that is separate from your iPhone passcode.

It helps because the files inside are encrypted, so moving the icon is not the only thing standing between a borrower and your photos. Sealed encrypts every file with AES-256-GCM before it is saved.

It helps that it closes on its own when you switch away, and covers itself in the app switcher. Sealed locks as soon as you leave it unless you choose a delay, and it covers its contents in the app switcher.

It doesn’t make the app invisible. The locked folder in App Library is still there for anyone who scrolls down, and the vault’s own lock screen is what keeps them out. Sealed has a passcode of its own, a gate inside the app that is separate from your iPhone passcode.

It doesn’t protect someone who shares their Sealed passcode, or uses plain Face ID unlock where the iPhone passcode works too. Your passcode is a gate in front of the app. It is not part of the key. With plain Face ID unlock on, someone who knows your iPhone passcode can open Sealed through the Face ID prompt. In iOS, an app that asks for owner authentication gets Face ID or Touch ID first, and the device passcode when biometry isn’t available or the person taps the fallback button.