SITUATIONS · 3 NOVEMBER 2026

Lending your iPhone without sharing your photos

Someone asks to make a call, look something up, or show your photos from last weekend. One swipe too far and they are somewhere you did not mean them to be. iOS has good tools for this.

Guided Access: keep them in one app

Guided Access locks the iPhone to a single app until you end it with your own passcode.

1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access and turn it on.
2. Tap Passcode Settings and set a Guided Access passcode, or use Face ID.
3. Open the app you want to hand over, then triple-click the side button (or the Home button) and tap Start.

To end it, triple-click again and enter the Guided Access passcode. It is ideal for children and for showing someone a single photo album.

Lock individual apps

On iOS 18 and later, touch and hold an app icon and choose Require Face ID. Photos, Messages, and Files are good candidates. The person needs your Face ID or passcode to open them, even while the phone is unlocked.

Showing photos? Share an album, not your library

To show a set of photos, put them in an album first and open only that album, ideally with Guided Access running. Swiping past the end of a photo in the Library shows everything else.

Keep private photos out of the library

The approaches above all depend on the person not knowing your passcode. If they do, or if they might watch you type it, keep sensitive photos in a vault with its own credential. With Vaultage's discreet mode, the locked app shows a working Calculator or Clock, so a borrowed phone does not draw attention to it.