How to lock your phone so you can only use one app: it’s perfect for lending it out

Consumer electronics is a sector that has seen incredible growth in recent years, with proposals such as watches, devices for the home, for the car and now with rings. However, the smartphone remains the most important connected device in our lives and, in Europe, few people can or want to do without it.

The fact that it is such a personal device makes it it contains private information of all kinds, from work documents to banking information, not forgetting personal photographs, which don’t have to be embarrassing, but can be intimate. This makes lending your cell phone to someone always a tricky thing.

At Google, they know this and have created a mode of smartphone use that blocks an application in the foreground and prevents you from exiting it and open another one. It is also very useful when we lend our cell phone to a child, with a specific video or game, but we do not want them to use other applications. This feature is built into all phones, regardless of brand.

App lock

To use this feature, we must first enable it. In some models it is enabled by default, but in others, like Samsung, you have to look for it in the settings. We have to go to Settings, Security & Privacy, More security settings and there, activate the purchase option Applying pins. Another option is to search for “Pin App” in the Settings search engine.

What this allows is a new menu in the multitasking section. When we tap the multitasking icon, or swipe up from the bottom frame and hold, in open application windows we can pin one. It’s done by clicking on its iconwhere a floating window appears with several options, including Pin this app.

If we select this option, this application will remain in the foreground, but we will not be able to return to the mobile office or reopen multitasking without going through mobile security. We need to use PIN or fingerprint unlock to be able to exit of this request. In this way, a person to whom we give the mobile phone will be able to use the pinned application, but only that person.

However, it must be taken into account that applications retain their permissions. So if, for example, we pinned Telegram, the person using the mobile phone will be able to attach images and see the photos on the mobile phone. The same goes for any other app. This does not restrict the capabilities of an application, it simply prevents the use of another application.