Ok, so I have children and a husband.
To put it bluntly, I need an app that not only hides apps but also hides the app i am using to hide the apps, icon as well.
I tried searching myself, but there were just so many.
And hey, don't judge a mom needs and outlet to herself too! Lol
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You raised a very timely issue for many people. Oftentimes you need to be able to loan your phone to someone else and you don't want that one person or persons to be able to see your private and confidential information and possibly photographs and/or videos. As you've discovered, there are a myriad of applications out there to do this but the problem is sorting through the many selections for the one or two that will serve your purposes specifically.
There are applications that pose as other applications such as calculators, audio managers, cameras and things of that nature but actually have a secret passageway if you will, an area that you tap which will open up the password screen that lets you gain access to your other apps, or a specific procedure that you must go through to do the same. Some do a great job of hiding pictures and videos, but not so good at hiding applications. On the flip side some are really good at hiding apps, but with some careful hunting you can find the photos and videos.
Hiding the apps themselves, and/or hiding photographs and videos is a difficult process unless your phone is rooted, because with a file manager you may simply be able to go in and look for these things directly. Yes they may hide them from plain view in the home screens and even the app tray, but don't hide them from the prying eyes of a file manager.
There is another risk with some of these apps in that they have in some cases cause people to lose access to their photos and videos behind a password that fails to work going forward for some reason or another. This is especially big of a problem with apps that also encrypt the photos and videos so they can't be read with a third-party application. The problem is with the app itself. Some are written very well and have resolved all bugs to allow them to operate as expected, but others are still in what I would call the beta phase, and are wrought with bugs, some which result in loss of data.
It seems as well that the hide apps which are designed to be less conspicuous in order to not raise suspicions, are the ones that tend to be more frequently causing problems and losing data.
LOCX is one that has very high ratings and can do most of what you want to do. I've use AppLock and for the simple purpose of locking photos and apps it worked well for my needs. Gallery Vault works well but only locks photos and videos so locking apps would need to be handled by another app. Hide It Pro poses as a volume control manager so it hides itself well. It can hide photos, video and apps.
In theory you could find an app that does each of two jobs best, locking apps or hiding photos and videos, and then one that hides apps best. Then lock the photos and videos with the one app, lock the apps with the other, then hide both of them with the third. I would test this method extensively with photos, videos and apps that you can afford to lose, to make sure it works safely before applying it to critical data.
I would suggest you keep to those apps with the very highest ratings, but don't let ratings be the only thing you decide upon. Make sure that the app has a large number of downloads and likewise reviews that result in those ratings.
I'm curious to hear others' opinions as well.
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