iPhone tower · floor
How to hide apps on iPhone, and where the name still shows
Apple offers two features here rather than one, and how to hide apps on iPhone is the second of them. Knowing which you want takes less time than doing the wrong one.
The app stays where it is and “requires Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode to open”. Apple
adds that information inside a locked app “won’t appear in other locations — for example, in
CarPlay, notification previews, search, Siri suggestions, or your call history”. After
you quit it, it relocks. Locking, plus removal from the Home Screen. The app “disappears from your Home Screen and
moves to the Hidden folder at the bottom of App Library”, reachable by swiping left past
every Home Screen page and authenticating.
The route starts in the same menu as locking, because hiding is locking with an extra step.Hiding one, in Apple’s steps
Note that hiding runs through the locking menu. There is no separate hide command: you require authentication first, and then choose to remove the icon as well. Which means anybody who has locked an app has already seen the door to hiding it.
Apple’s own sentence, and it is the one that decides whether this feature does what you want.
Hiding removes an icon and adds a lock; it does not remove the app’s name from the phone. Three
ordinary screens still list it, and none of them requires anything clever to open. If the
purpose is that nobody knows the app exists, this is not the feature that achieves it — and
Apple says so rather than letting you find out.“When you hide an app, its name is still visible in some places, such as
Screen Time, Battery Usage By App (in Settings), and your App Store purchase
history.”
That list is short and specific, and it is the difference between a feature and a promise. Two of the three are ordinary settings screens and the third is a list kept by the App Store. None of them is behind the authentication that guards the app itself. Hiding an app is genuinely useful for handing somebody your unlocked phone — Apple’s own framing is wanting “peace of mind that they can’t get into certain apps” — and it is not a way to make an app unfindable.
There is a second limit in the same guide, and it matters on any household with more than one Apple device: “When you lock or hide an app on your device, it’s only locked or hidden on that device. The locked or hidden status of an app doesn’t sync with iCloud.” So the same app on an iPad is exactly where it was.
And below thirteen the feature is not available at all: Apple states that “children under 13 in
a Family Sharing group can’t lock or hide apps.” It adds that “these ages vary by country or
region”. Worth knowing from both sides of that arrangement — a teenager should know what hiding
does not conceal, and a parent should know it is not a way for an app to vanish from their
view.“Anyone aged 13 to 17 in a Family Sharing group can lock or hide an app, but a
parent or guardian in the family group can see that the app was downloaded and how much time
it’s used, and restrict access to it using Screen Time.”
What cannot be hidden or locked. Apple: “Apps that come installed can’t be hidden — only apps you download separately from the App Store can be hidden”, and an app set as the default web browser or app marketplace cannot be hidden either. Locking has its own exclusions, and Apple lists them: Calculator, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Find My, Maps, Shortcuts and Settings. So a request that fails on one of these is not a fault in the phone or a step you missed.
One practical note on living with a locked app, because it is the part that decides whether you keep the setting. Apple: you can open and use a locked app “without permanently unlocking it” — tap it, authenticate, use it — and “after you quit the app, it relocks”. There is no session, no timer to configure and nothing to remember to switch back on. Unlocking permanently is a separate action: the same menu, Don’t Require Face ID.
The floors below take it three ways: locking against hiding, what remains visible either way, and the neighbouring settings for a phone somebody else may be holding.
Where to start
Three ways in.
- “I am handing somebody my phone.”
- Start at locking and hiding
- “Will anybody know the app is there?”
- Go to what stays visible
- “The option is not on the menu.”
- That is what cannot be hidden
Locking and hiding
Two features, one menu. Locking keeps the icon and adds authentication; hiding does the same and moves the app into a folder at the bottom of App Library.
What stays visible
Three ordinary screens still carry the name, by Apple’s own account. The feature is about access rather than about existence.
What cannot be hidden
Built-in apps, and a specific list Apple publishes for locking. A greyed-out option here is documented behaviour rather than a fault.
What this tower will not do
It will not tell you a hidden app is invisible. Apple names three places the name still appears, and leaving that out would be selling the feature rather than describing it.
It will not skip the Family Sharing rules. A parent can still see that an app was downloaded and how long it is used, and both people in that arrangement deserve to know it.
And it will not suggest a way around the limits. Built-in apps cannot be hidden, and Apple publishes the list of what cannot be locked. What holds instead is simple: the difference between locking and hiding, the steps for each, the three places where a hidden app’s name still appears, the note that locked and hidden status does not sync with iCloud, the Family Sharing rules by age, and the lists of what cannot be locked or hidden are quoted from Apple’s iPhone User Guide, listed below.
Where this page got its facts
- Apple, iPhone User Guide — Lock or hide an app on iPhone (that locking requires Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode to open an app and that information inside a locked app will not appear in CarPlay, notification previews, search, Siri suggestions or call history; that a locked or hidden status applies only to that device and does not sync with iCloud; that children under 13 in a Family Sharing group cannot lock or hide apps, that those aged 13 to 17 can but a parent or guardian can see the app was downloaded and how much time it is used and can restrict it with Screen Time, and that these ages vary by country or region; the steps to lock, to open a locked app without permanently unlocking it and that it relocks after quitting, and to unlock via Don’t Require Face ID; that some apps that come with iPhone cannot be locked, namely Calculator, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Find My, Maps, Shortcuts and Settings; the steps to hide an app and that it moves to the Hidden folder at the bottom of App Library; that a hidden app’s name is still visible in places such as Screen Time, Battery Usage By App and App Store purchase history; and that apps that come installed cannot be hidden, only apps downloaded separately from the App Store, with default web browser and app marketplace apps also excluded) — support.apple.com, read 22 August 2026.
Written by Alberto Gulotta
Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.
Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.
Written on 22 August 2026.
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