Hide apps on iPhone using cloak

From time to time, you may need to hand over your iPhone to someone. But while doing this, you don’t want certain apps to be seen on your device.

Hiding such apps is the best way to keep them private in such situations. Although there are many ways to do this, most of them are ineffective and impractical.

Cloak promises to change that by offering a quick and easy way to hide apps on your iPhone. So let’s take a look at this app in detail and see what you can do with it.

What is Cloak?

Cloak is an app that allows you to hide apps on your iPhone. Unlike other ways to hide iPhone apps, when you hide an app with Cloak, it completely removes it from your device, including your home screen, app library, and notifications.

Likewise, Cloak offers the easiest way to hide apps on iPhone. It involves a one-time setup and offers features like Safe Zones, which help you hide apps automatically when you leave a certain location.

Cloak is free to use and available on iPhone and iPad. However, the free plan only allows you to hide three apps and limits access to certain features. If you want to hide more apps, you can upgrade to Cloak Pro with a one-time purchase, which gives you access to the full feature set.

Download: Cloak (free, in-app purchase)

How to use cloak to hide apps on iPhone

After installing the app, launch it and tap on Continue orb. Cloak will ask you to grant access to Screen Time. Since the app uses Screen Time data to work, tap on the option Continue give him access. Authenticate by touching the icon Authorization with Face ID button, then press Ready.

Cloak is pretty easy to hide apps by configuring it. On the app’s home screen, tap the icon Application group 1 card to access the activity selection window. Press the down arrow next to the app category you think contains the apps you want to hide and select the apps.

After selecting the apps you want to hide, press the button Ready, and you will be returned to the main application screen. Here, a number will appear at the top of the card indicating the number of apps you’ve selected to hide. Hit the Hide button below the card and when asked to confirm the operation, tap the button Continue.

Cloak will now hide all selected apps from your device. And after that, you won’t see them on your home screen, app library, or notification center.

Create multiple app groups in Cloak

Creating an app group and adding apps using Cloak is one way to hide apps. However, this is not the most efficient approach if you want to hide apps in different categories based on different contexts.

For example, if you often need to hide banking apps and social media apps on your iPhone, but you want banking apps to be hidden in one instance and social media in another, putting all apps in one group will hide them all at once .

An effective way to hide iPhone apps in this situation is to set multiple app groups in Cloak. Upgrade to Cloak Pro to unlock this feature.

Then slide the application group to the left and tap Create a new application group card. From there, press the ellipsis button on the card and select it Rename group. Give the group an appropriate name and press ok. Enter the group and select the apps you want to hide.

Finally, if you want to hide the apps in this group, tap Hide button and Cloak will hide them on your iPhone.

Automatically hide apps using safe zones

Safe Zones is a Cloak feature that allows you to automatically hide apps on your iPhone. It needs access to your location and then automatically hides apps when you leave home or work.

If you’re easily distracted by social media apps at work, this feature can help curb that by hiding all the apps you find distracting on your iPhone when you leave home.

To set up a Cloak safe zone, first enable location services on your iPhone. Then open Cloak and go to Safe zones sheet.

Here, press a plus (+) button in the upper right corner and tap an area on the map to set it as the center of the zone. Tap the arrows next to it Zone diameter and select a range from the available options beyond which Cloak will automatically launch and hide the specified apps on your iPhone.

By default, Cloak does not restore hidden apps when you return to the zone center. However, if you want to change this behavior so that apps are restored automatically, press the ellipsis button next to the app group on the Safe Zones tab and tap Restore applications on login to enable it.

What other options does Cloak offer?

Apart from being able to manually and automatically hide apps on your iPhone, the Cloak app also offers some other cool features. You can find them in the Settings tab of the application. And here are some that we find useful:

1. Password and Face ID

Since you use Cloak to hide apps, it’s a good idea to lock them with a password or Face ID. This will restrict access and prevent anyone from accessing and revealing hidden apps on your iPhone.

2. Disable App Uninstaller

If you hide apps with Cloak and uninstall it from your iPhone, the hidden apps will be restored after uninstalling. Fortunately, it offers an option to disable app uninstallation to prevent anyone from deleting Cloak or any other app from your device.

3. Incognito password

If you want to take app cloaking to the next level, Cloak’s incognito password feature can help you do just that. A feature available with Cloak Pro allows you to disguise Cloak as a note-taking app. So, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to unlock Cloak, you can enter the incognito code instead and Cloak becomes a note-taking app.

Hiding iPhone apps is easier than you think

Effectively hiding apps on iPhones so that they are completely hidden from the system once seemed like a distant dream. However, Cloak makes this possible while making the process quite simple as you can see above.

While Cloak may not be the first app to promise this feature, it certainly lives up to expectations. It’s the most feature-rich of the offerings available, and it also offers an iPad app in case you want to hide apps on your iPad.