To improve your privacy when your iPhone or iPad is locked, you can hide the content of your notifications and notifications. In this tip, we’ll show you how it works.
This way you hide the content of your notifications
Unless you have an iPhone X, your iPhone or iPad will show the contents of notifications by default when you receive one. The screen lights up and you can see at a glance what is coming in. That’s not always helpful, especially when there are other people around. You don’t always want everyone to be able to watch.
Fortunately, you can set your iPad or iPhone so that you don’t see the content of notifications until you have unlocked the device. To do this, follow the step-by-step plan below.
- Open the Settings app and go to ‘Notifications’;
- Tap on ‘Show preview’;
- Choose ‘Always’, ‘When unlocked’ or ‘Never’.
If you have an iPhone X, the content of your notifications can only be read by default if Face ID has recognized your face. Your messages will then appear simply by looking at your iPhone. If someone else turns on the screen, that person will only see which apps are giving a notification, but not what is in them.
On the iPhone 8 and earlier devices, you have to turn the option on manually. You will only see the content of notifications when you unlock your iPhone with Touch ID. By following the steps above, you have turned the option on.
Recently, an iOS bug was discovered that can display the content of these shielded notifications via Siri. Apple will likely fix this bug soon with a future iOS update. You can read more about this bug in the article below.
Read more: Siri reads content from hidden messages on locked iPhones