How to Use ‘Guided Access’ to Keep Your iPhone’s Secrets Secure
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A smartphone is an incredibly personal thing. We all know this. But there are times when you might need to hand over your iPhone to a friend — or, in a similarly likely scenario — give your phone to a child to keep them entertained for a short time.
Luckily, iOS devices have a hidden yet nifty option that lets you control which features of your smartphone are available to use at a given time. Here’s how it works.
How to Turn on Guided Access
- Open Settings.
- Tap on General, and then Accessibility.
- Scroll down to Guided Access, and toggle it on.
- Then tap Passcode Settings.
- Set a Guided Access Passcode, or switch on Touch ID.
- Open an app you’d like to keep your iPhone restricted to during a Guided Access session.
- Circle any areas on the screen you’d like to disable.
- Tap the Options button to disable other buttons or actions.
- Press Start and you’re ready to pass your iPhone or iPad over to someone else without fear of your private information being uncovered.
From now on, you can turn Guided Access on by triple-clicking the Home button within any app — you’ll be prompted to enter a new and separate passcode.
How to Turn off Guided Access
- To get out of Guided Access, you must to triple-click the Home button again and enter the passcode.
- Tap End to end your session.
The practical applications for Guided Access are pretty numerous. Of course, the most obvious would be to lockdown your phone to a single app when you hand it to a child or other youngster — but there are other uses, too. For example, if you want to hand your phone to a friend so they can scroll through a photo album, Guided Access can keep them from exiting Photos and opening a part of the phone that you don’t want them to. No more hesitation when your friend with a dead phone asks to borrow yours.
Additionally, Guided Access can help you focus on a task, according to Apple. You can disable parts of the screen that aren’t relevant to a task, or areas where an accidental gesture could cause a distraction in your workflow.
Can you think of any other uses for Guided Access?
Let us know in the comments below!
