How to Hide Apps on iPhone (iOS 27 Guide)

You're about to hand your phone to a kid to watch a video, or pass it to a friend to show off a photo. Either way, there are apps on there you'd rather not have casually visible.

Apple actually built a proper answer to this years ago, and most people still don't know it exists. They're stuck dragging apps into folders three pages deep, which fools nobody who actually swipes around for two seconds.

I tested the real hiding feature through the iOS 26 cycle and again on iOS 27, which rolled out today, and the short version is: it still works exactly the way it has since iOS 18. The steps below are current as of this release.

Before iOS 18, People Faked This With Duct Tape

It's worth knowing what came before, because a lot of outdated advice from that era is still floating around search results.

• The old trick was burying an app several folder pages deep and hoping nobody scrolled that far, which never actually hid anything from a determined search
• Guided Access, buried in Accessibility settings, locks your phone into a single app until you triple-click the side button and enter a passcode. That's the opposite of hiding something, it's the only thing visible
• Screen Time's Restrictions could block the App Store or prevent deleting apps, but it never removed an icon from view
• Jailbreaking used to be the only real way to make an app icon disappear entirely, tweaks like those in the old Cydia ecosystem did this at the springboard level

None of those approaches actually removed an icon from the Home Screen the way the current feature does. That's the real gap Apple closed with iOS 18, and it's why the native option below is worth using instead of any of the above.

How Apple's Hide Feature Actually Works

There are two separate concepts here that people constantly mix up: locking an app and hiding an app. They're related, but not identical.

• Locking an app means it requires Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode to open. Its content also stops showing up in notification previews, Search, Siri suggestions, and your call history
• Hiding an app does everything locking does, plus it removes the icon from your Home Screen entirely and moves it into a dedicated Hidden folder at the bottom of your App Library
• You cannot hide an app without also locking it. The two are bundled together by design, so a hidden app is never sitting there unprotected

Both settings live on the device itself, not in iCloud. That matters more than it sounds like it should.

The iCloud Gap Nobody Mentions

Hiding an app on your iPhone does not hide it on your iPad or your other iPhone. Each device tracks its own hidden and locked apps independently.

If you hide a messaging app on your phone and then hand someone your iPad logged into the same Apple ID, that app is sitting right there in plain view. This trips up more people than any other part of the feature.

There's also a security detail worth knowing: Stolen Device Protection, if you have it turned on, extends to locked and hidden apps too. It blocks passcode-only fallback access to them in situations Apple flags as high-risk, like being away from familiar locations, so a stolen phone with a compromised passcode still can't get into apps protected this way.

One more mechanical detail: there's no bulk option. Each app gets hidden individually through its own long-press menu, so if you're hiding a handful of apps at once, budget a couple of minutes rather than expecting a single Settings toggle to do it for you.

Comparing Every Way to Hide Something on Your iPhone

The native Face ID hide feature isn't the only option, and it isn't always the right one. Here's how the realistic methods stack up.

Method	How hidden	Setup effort	Security level	Best for
Hide and Require Face ID	Moved to locked Hidden folder in App Library	Low, built into long-press menu	High, biometric-gated	Genuinely sensitive apps
Remove from Home Screen	Stays in App Library only, no icon on Home Screen	Very low	None, one tap to find	Decluttering, not privacy
Hidden Home Screen page	Page itself unchecked, apps still in App Library	Low	None, easily found via Search	Reducing visual clutter
Siri & Search suppression	App excluded from Search, Suggestions, Spotlight	Low, per-app toggle	Low, app icon still visible	Reducing accidental exposure
Screen Time App Limits	App still visible, access time-boxed	Medium	Low to medium	Self-control, not secrecy
Offloading the app	App icon disappears, data kept, app re-downloads on tap	Very low	None	Freeing space on rarely used apps

If actual privacy is the goal, only the top row does the job properly. Everything else is organization, not security.

I've watched people confidently explain that they "hid" an app by dragging it into a folder buried on page four of their Home Screen. Type the app's name into Search and it appears instantly, notification history and all. That's the difference this table is really pointing at: whether an app is inconvenient to stumble across, or genuinely gated behind authentication.

Hiding an App, Step by Step

Here's the exact workflow, tested on a current iPhone running iOS 27:

• Find the app on your Home Screen and touch and hold its icon until the quick actions menu pops up
• Tap Require Face ID (this will read Touch ID or Passcode depending on your device)
• Tap Hide and Require Face ID a second time
• Authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode when prompted
• Tap Hide App to confirm

The icon disappears from your Home Screen immediately. It's now sitting in the Hidden folder, and it stopped sending you notification banners the moment you hid it.

Pro Tip: If the app you want to hide is already sitting inside a folder, long-pressing the folder itself won't get you the option. You have to open the folder first, then long-press the individual app icon inside it. This trips up almost everyone the first time.

Finding a Hidden App Again

• Swipe left past all your Home Screen pages until you reach App Library
• Scroll to the very bottom, where a folder labeled Hidden sits with a plain eye icon instead of app previews
• Tap it and authenticate again with Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode
• Long-press the app inside to reveal Don't Require Face ID and Add to Home Screen if you want to fully restore it

A minor but real gotcha from actually living with this feature: it's easy to forget which apps you've hidden once you've got three or four sitting in there. There's no reminder system, so if you hide something and don't open it for a few weeks, don't be surprised if you briefly forget it exists until you stumble back into the Hidden folder.

That double authentication, once for the folder and again for individual actions, is intentional friction, not a bug.

Pro Tip: Don't confuse this with Guided Access. Guided Access locks your entire phone into one single app until you manually exit it, which is the exact opposite of hiding something. If a guide tells you to use Guided Access to "hide" an app, it's describing the wrong tool.

Where This Feature Genuinely Falls Short

Nothing here makes the hide feature useless, but it has real gaps worth knowing before you rely on it completely.

• Apple's own pre-installed apps, the ones that ship with the phone, generally can't be hidden this way at all. You're limited to third-party and App Store downloads for true hiding
• The hidden status doesn't sync across your devices, so you have to repeat the process on every iPhone or iPad tied to your account
• A hidden app's name can still surface in a few unexpected places: Settings, under Apps and Hidden Apps behind its own authentication, Screen Time's app list, Battery Health usage stats, and App Store purchase history
• Children under 13 in a Family Sharing group are blocked from using lock or hide entirely, by design
• Losing notification previews is a real trade-off. If you hide a banking app, you'll stop seeing fraud alerts pop up unless you specifically check it
• Anyone who has your Face ID enrolled, your Touch ID enrolled, or knows your passcode has exactly the same access to hidden apps that you do
• There's no separate "hide apps" passcode distinct from your device passcode, so you can't set up one layer of security for your phone in general and a different, stronger one specifically for hidden content
• If you factory reset or restore from a backup onto a new iPhone, hidden and locked status can behave inconsistently depending on how the backup was made, so it's worth double-checking sensitive apps after any migration

Pro Tip: Battery Health usage stats under Settings, Battery still list every app by name and screen time, hidden or not. If you're hiding an app from someone who might casually check battery drain, that list will still give it away.

Hiding apps is not a handover procedure; if you are selling the phone, our guide explains turning off Find My iPhone and Activation Lock.

Practical Setup: Closing the Gaps After You Hide Something

Hiding the app icon is step one. If you actually need this to hold up under scrutiny, a few more settings are worth touching.

• Go to Settings, Screen Time, and set or check your Screen Time passcode. Anyone with access to Screen Time settings can see app usage even for hidden apps
• If the app has separate App Store purchase history, go to your account's Purchase History and hide that specific purchase so it doesn't show up when someone scrolls your order list
• Head to Settings, Siri & Search, select the hidden app, and turn off Show in Search, Show in Spotlight, and Show Siri Suggestions for extra insurance, even though hiding already suppresses most of this
• Turn on Stolen Device Protection under Settings, Face ID & Passcode if you haven't already, since it extends the same protection layer to your hidden apps automatically
• For apps you rarely open but don't want to fully hide, consider offloading instead. It clears the icon and frees storage while keeping your data intact for a one-tap redownload
• After hiding anything sensitive, do a quick pass through Settings, General, iPhone Storage as well. The storage list shows every installed app regardless of hidden status, so it's another place a determined snoop could confirm an app exists even without opening it
• If you share the phone with family members through Family Sharing, remember that the organizer can still see purchase and subscription activity tied to the account, separate from anything device-level hiding controls

None of this requires a terminal, a jailbreak, or a third-party app locker. Every step here is a stock Settings toggle Apple ships on every current iPhone.

FAQ

Does hiding an app on iPhone delete it or its data? No. Hiding only moves the icon into the locked Hidden folder in App Library. The app and everything inside it stays exactly as it was. For example, hiding ChatGPT app does not cancel its subscription; use our ChatGPT subscription cancellation guide if you want to stop renewal.

Can someone find a hidden app without my Face ID or passcode? Not the app itself, but its name can still surface in Screen Time, Battery Health stats, and App Store purchase history unless you separately address each of those.

Do hidden apps still send me notifications? No. The moment you hide an app, its notification previews and banners stop appearing, which is exactly why you should periodically check anything important you've hidden, like a banking app.

Can I hide Apple's built-in apps like Messages or Photos? No, Apple's own pre-installed apps generally aren't eligible for the Hide and Require Face ID option. Your only real option there is removing the icon from your Home Screen while keeping it in App Library, which isn't true hiding.

Is the Photos app's Hidden Album the same feature as this? No, they're built separately. Photos has its own Hidden album under the Photos app settings for individual pictures and videos, while hiding an app moves the entire app icon into the App Library's Hidden folder; using one doesn't affect the other.

Third-party "app locker" apps used to be the only real answer to this, and they were never great, since they usually just wrapped the app icon in a fake passcode screen without touching the OS itself. That entire category has been quietly obsolete since Apple shipped native locking and hiding starting in iOS 18.

What's changed since then isn't the feature, it's how much Apple has built around it. Stolen Device Protection now plugs directly into locked apps, and every iOS release from 18 through today's iOS 27 has kept the exact same interaction model rather than reinventing it. That consistency is the real story here: Apple found an interface that works and left it alone.

Expect this to stay boring in the best way. The gaps that exist today, mainly the lack of iCloud sync and the inability to hide first-party apps, look more like deliberate scope decisions than oversights Apple is racing to fix.

If anything changes next, it's more likely to come from the Family Sharing and child-safety side of iOS than from the privacy side. Apple has spent recent releases tightening parental controls rather than loosening them, so don't expect the under-13 restriction on hiding apps to go away, and don't expect a workaround to become an official feature either.

Sources & Further Reading

• Apple Support: Lock or hide apps on your iPhone
• iOS 26 and iOS 27 hands-on reporting on the Hidden folder behavior