How to hide apps on your Android phone

Every now and then, a man needs to hide their apps from the home screen or app drawer so as not to allow prying eyes or toddler's hands to hit on a Facebook or WhatsApp icon inadvertently to take a deep dive into your secret chats, or rack up a bill with in-game purchases in no time. That's where a few solutions to take your sensitive apps away from the home screen or app drawer come in handy.SamsungIf you own a Samsung, you are in luck, as its Secure Folder solution not only hides apps apps from plain sight, but actually creates ...

Hiding apps from plain sight on your Samsung or LG phone is easy This is particularly important to use a WeChat spy app if your kids and teenagers use their mobile phones most of the time. Keeping a watchful eye on their online activities can minimize the risks of the virtual world.

Every now and then, a man needs to hide their apps from the home screen or app drawer so as not to allow prying eyes or toddler's hands to hit on a Facebook or WhatsApp icon inadvertently to take a deep dive into your secret chats, or rack up a bill with in-game purchases in no time. That's where a few solutions to take your sensitive apps away from the home screen or app drawer come in handy.

Samsung

If you own a Samsung, you are in luck, as its Secure Folder solution not only hides apps apps from plain sight, but actually creates separate versions, so Notes, for instance, can have one collection of lists visible when you open it outside Secure Folder, and a totally different one when you access it via Secure Folder. The folder, in its turn, can be locked with a PIN, pattern, password or biometrics, so that only you can access and view the separate app versions there. Moreover, you can lock files and media there, too. 

Alternatively, you can go to Settings>Display>Home screen>Hide apps, and pick the icons to stash from there, though that would only hide them from plain view, they'll still be in search results, or in the app list.

Content of one and the same app can be completely different in Secure Folder (right) and outside of it

LG

Go to Settings>Display>Home screen>Hide apps, and you will see the list of apps shown on the right, ready to be hidden. Some Android brands, LG included, have the hiding option built into the interface, so you can simply tap on the "Hide apps" option in the home screen or app drawer settings menu, and choose which apps shouldn't appear in plain sight, as you can see in the screenshots above, coming from the S8+ and the V30. 

Android launcher

Those interfaces that don't give you the ability to hide apps like MIUI can simply be repainted with a third-party launcher like Nova or Apex. That's a universal solution that might not be to everyone's taste, but the ability to hide apps has to be embedded in the overlay by the manufacturer otherwise, and not everybody has gone through the trouble.

Hide apps with Nova

Hide apps with Apex

Many other brands enter agreements with third-party app developers, and their Android overlays come with alternatives to Samsung's Secret Folder already preinstalled. Huawei and honor have Gallery Vault, for instance, which de facto is an app you can download off Google Play, but it doesn't let you hide apps. 

As for third-party apps, we tried most of the top ones listed for the purpose of hiding or locking in Google Play, and none worked sufficiently well - we were able to trick them with various simple steps like killing all recent apps, restarting the phone, tweaking their permissions, or simply doing a simple search for the app, and launching it from there. Hey, if you are bent on snooping on someone's privacy, you will already know a hiding app is there, masked as a calculator, that's the oldest trick in the book!