How to Hide Apps on Android

Our smartphone tells a lot about us. We use several apps for several things, but we may not be comfortable in showing all of our installed apps to others. For example, you will not like if you girlfriend finds Tinder on your phone. If you feel same, you can hide apps. Hidden apps will not be shown to other people and they won’t know if you have actually those apps installed. If you are not sure how to hide Android apps on your phone, keep reading.

The default way of hiding the installed apps is to “disable” them. When you want to use any of those apps again, you can “enable” it. But this process can be used only if you are comfortable with erasing all the data of the apps. After enabling the app, you will have to set it up again. I don’t think you are looking for something like this.

Hide Android Apps

For actually hiding the app from someone’s eye without actually disabling or removing is also possible. But you need to install third-party launchers. There are few Android launchers that offer hide apps option. Apex launcher is one of those Android launchers.

Once installed, go to the “Apex Settings”. Here, tap on “Hidden Apps” option. In next screen, tap on “Add Hidden apps” and select all the apps you want to hide.

Now the apps you selected to hide will not be available on app drawer or home screen. When you want to see it again, follow the same steps and unhide.

Nova Launcher also offers the option to hide apps, but that option is not available in free version. You will have to purchase Nova Launcher Prime subscription.

There is an app App Hider that allows you to create a clone of an app and then hide that clone within the App Hider interface. Then you can delete the original app. To keep this app hidden from people’s eyes, This app comes in the form of a calculator. So, people will see it as a calculator app. When you first open the app, it asks you to set a passcode. If you put this passcode in the App Hider calculator and press =, you will get access to hidden apps.

Here, you see the option to add the app. When you add an app, it will create a clone of it.

I cannot show the snapshot of steps because the app doesn’t allow screenshot capture.

Final Words

I know many of you are not comfortable in changing the launcher. But there is no default option in Android, except the option to disable. So, the only way you get is the use of launcher. Alternatively, you can use apps to password protect your apps. But that doesn’t solve the purpose because other people will know that you are actually using those apps.