It’s extremely annoying when your iPhone is stolen, but it’s even worse when your data isn’t safe. This is how you make your iPhone useless to thieves!
Protect your iPhone properly
It’s most people’s nightmare: losing your phone. There are several ways to get your iPhone back after a thief has made off with it. It’s especially important that you have the Find My feature enabled on your phone so that you can continue to track the iPhone’s location. Find My Network is a useful tool for this.
Also read: Thieves steal your code first, then your iPhone – that way you are safe
Thieves are now aware of all the ways to find iPhones, so they immediately try to adjust the settings of your iPhone. It is therefore extremely important to properly secure your phone in order to protect your iPhone against thieves. With Screen Time, you can make it even harder to change your iPhone’s settings. This is how you make your iPhone useless to thieves!
Use Screen Time to protect your iPhone
You’re probably familiar with your iPhone’s Screen Time. Screen Time shows you exactly how much time you’ve spent on your iPhone. The feature even gives you a breakdown of the number of minutes (or hours) spent using a particular app. A relatively unknown feature to protect your iPhone is setting a passcode in Screen Time.
When you enable a passcode in Screen Time, you can hide certain actions from your iPhone’s settings. As soon as you (or someone else) want to make changes to your account, the Screen Time code must first be entered. Only then will the options reappear and changes can be made. If you haven’t set this up, it’s much easier for thieves to change your passcode or account.
How to add a code to Screen Time:
- Go to your iPhone’s settings;
- Tap “Screen Time”;
- Choose ‘Set passcode for Screen Time’;
- Enter a new PIN code;
- Repeat the PIN code;
- Enter your Apple ID or phone number;
- Then adjust the settings under ‘Restrictions’.
It is, of course, recommended that you choose a different Screen Time passcode than your iPhone passcode. Under restrictions you can then choose when this PIN must be entered. By choosing ‘Do not allow’ behind ‘Access code changes’ and ‘Account changes’, you add an extra layer of security when important data is changed.
Choosing “Don’t Allow” for these features will remove options like “Face ID & Passcode” from the list in your iPhone’s settings. As a result, a thief cannot simply change your access code or change the settings of your profile. Do you want to change your access code yourself? Then you first have to choose ‘Allow’ under Screen time. To do this, you must first enter the Screen Time pin code.
More tips for your iPhone
In this way, you no longer need just the passcode to adjust the settings of your iPhone. This way your iPhone is much better protected against thieves, because it is much more difficult to retrieve both PIN codes in a short time. In addition, you hardly ever enter the PIN code for Screen Time, so that thieves cannot secretly look at the code when unlocking your iPhone.
Also Read: Lost or Stolen iPhone? You must do this and this is how you prevent it
These settings make it less easy for thieves to modify your iPhone, making it virtually useless to them. Are you curious about more useful tips to protect your iPhone? Earlier we wrote how you can easily find your iPhone with your Apple Watch and how you can best protect your privacy on your iPhone. Check out all our iPhone tips below:
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This iPhone trick makes your device useless to thieves
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Hide app(s) on your iPhone: this is the fastest way to do it
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Annoying spam messages on Instagram – that’s how you stop it
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Charging iPhone correctly: you should definitely not do this
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iPhone tips: this is how you solve problems with your battery!