Warning to never hand your Android phone to someone without doing ‘swipe-tap’ trick first

ANYONE with an Android phone needs to learn the "swipe tap" trick to lock apps.

It means you can hand your phone to a friend or colleague with greater peace of mind.

Have you ever let someone use your phone and worried that they might start roaming?

Maybe you want to keep your texts, photos or other apps private.

Or perhaps you're a parent and you don't want your child stumbling across something on your phone that they shouldn't.

Thankfully there's a way to lock someone onto one app, so they can't snoop on other parts of your Android handset.

The clever Google feature is one of the best privacy hacks you can learn.

"You can pin an app's screen to keep it in view until you unpin it," Google explains.

"For example, you can pin an app and hand your phone to a friend.

"With the screen pinned, your friend can use only that app. To use your other apps again, you can unpin the screen."

How to pin apps

First, make sure you've got Android 11 or later.

You can check your Android version and update by going into Settings.

Now go into Settings, tap Security or Security & Location > Advanced > App Pinning.

You can then turn on App Pinning.

Once that's done, you're free to pin and unpin any app.

First go to the app that you want to pin, then swipe up to the middle of your screen.

Then tap the app icon at the top of the image, and press Pin.

You can swipe up and hold to unpin a screen, but you'll have to enter your passcode to do so.

This stops people from leaving the pinned app and roaming free on your device.