Before picking a method, work out which of three different things you actually want, because they need different tools and the wrong one will quietly fail you.
- Out of sight, for your own sake. You keep opening something out of habit and you want it to stop appearing in front of you. Nobody else is involved.
- Private from another person. Somebody else uses or borrows your phone and you do not want an app, or its notifications, visible to them.
- Harder to reach, on purpose. You want the app available but not available in one thumb movement, as a deliberate speed bump.
The first and third are about your own attention and have easy answers. The second is a security question and has a much smaller set of real answers, because an app that is merely absent from a list is not hidden from anybody who looks properly.
The method everybody tries first, which does not work
Dragging an app into a folder called Utilities on your last home screen page feels like hiding it. It is not. The app is two taps away instead of one, it still appears in your app drawer, it still appears when you search, and your thumb will learn the new route within about three days. If the goal was to break a habit, burying an icon buys you less than a week.
Worse, it feels like you have done something, which is the most expensive outcome, because you stop looking for a method that works.
Method 1: Samsung's built in hide, if you have a Galaxy
One UI has this natively and it is the cleanest option on a Samsung phone. Open Settings, then Home screen, then scroll to Hide apps on Home and Apps screens. Pick your apps, apply, and they vanish from both the home screen and the app drawer.
You can also reach it by long pressing an empty area of the home screen, tapping Settings, and finding the same entry. On some One UI versions the option is worded Hidden apps.
What it hides: the icon, everywhere in the launcher. What it does not hide: the app still exists in Settings then Apps, it still runs, it still sends notifications, its usage still appears in Digital Wellbeing, and it still appears in your Play Store library. This is an attention tool, not a privacy tool. Anyone who thinks to look in Settings will find it in about ten seconds.
Method 2: Private Space, on Android 15 and newer
Private Space is the first genuinely private option Android has shipped, and it is the right answer if your concern is another person. Open Settings, then Security and privacy, then Private space, and follow the setup. It creates a separate, locked container on the same phone with its own lock, and you install apps into it separately.
While the space is locked, its apps do not appear in your app drawer, do not appear in recents, and their notifications are suppressed. You can also hide the Private Space entry itself from the bottom of the app drawer, so there is no visible shelf marked Private for someone to tap at.
- Setup suggests a separate Google account, so that the browsing history and app data inside the space do not mix with your main account. You can use your existing account instead if you prefer.
- Apps inside are separate installs. WhatsApp in your Private Space is a different installation from WhatsApp outside it, with its own data and its own login.
- It arrived in Android 15, so a phone still on 14 or older will not have it, and a few manufacturers ship their own variation of the idea instead.
The catch is friction in the other direction. Everything in a Private Space is slightly inconvenient to reach by design, which is excellent for privacy and annoying for an app you use daily.
Method 3: OEM equivalents on other phones
Several manufacturers built their own version before Android had one, and if you are on an older release this may be your only native route. Names vary and so do the menus, so search your own Settings rather than trusting a list.
| Phone | What to look for | Roughly where |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung | Hide apps on Home and Apps screens | Settings, Home screen |
| Xiaomi and Redmi | Hidden apps, inside App lock | Settings, Apps, App lock |
| OnePlus and Oppo | Hidden Space, or App Lock | Swipe right in the app drawer, or Settings, Privacy |
| Vivo | App Hide, inside Privacy and app encryption | Settings, Fingerprint, face and password |
| Pixel and Motorola | Nothing native before Private Space | Use Method 2, 4 or 5 |
Pixel and Motorola run close to stock Android and have no built in hide at all, which surprises people. On those phones the launcher is the thing you change.
Method 4: A work profile, for the technically comfortable
Android has a managed profile system built for company phones, and two free open source apps, Shelter and Insular, let you use it for yourself without a company involved. Apps installed into the profile are kept in a separate container, and the whole profile can be paused with one switch, which freezes every app inside it at once.
That pause switch is the interesting part. It is not hiding so much as a power cut: a paused app cannot run, cannot sync and cannot notify, and unpausing is one tap when you genuinely need it. For an app you want off your phone six days a week, this is the strongest tool on the list.
Honest warning: a work profile is a real Android feature being used in an unusual way. Setup is fiddly, some banking and DRM apps refuse to run inside a managed profile, and if you later remove the profile everything inside it is deleted. Try it with one app you do not care about first.
Method 5: Change the launcher, and hide at the source
Every method above works around the launcher. The launcher is the thing that decides what you see, so changing it is the most direct version of the same idea, and it is the only approach that also lets you change how an app is presented rather than just whether it appears.
Most third party launchers offer a hidden apps list. A minimal launcher goes further, because there are no icons to be drawn to in the first place: the question stops being which icons to remove and becomes which few names deserve to be on the first screen.
What none of these methods do
This section matters more than the methods, because the gap between what people think hiding does and what it does is where the trouble happens.
- Nothing above stops the app running. A hidden app still syncs, still uses battery and still sends notifications, unless you are using Private Space while locked or a paused work profile.
- Digital Wellbeing still records it. Settings, then Digital Wellbeing, shows usage per app regardless of whether the icon is visible anywhere.
- Your Play Store library still lists it. Open the Play Store, tap your profile, then Manage apps and device, and every install is there.
- Settings then Apps lists everything. This list cannot be edited and shows every installed package on the phone.
- Android has no secret folder. There is no feature anywhere in the system that makes an app invisible to someone with your unlocked phone and a minute of curiosity, other than Private Space and a work profile, both of which have their own lock.
If you want it gone rather than hidden
Two options, and the second one is underused. Uninstalling is obvious. But many preloaded apps cannot be uninstalled and can be disabled, which is almost as good: go to Settings, then Apps, pick the app, and tap Disable. A disabled app stops running entirely, disappears from the drawer, and can be turned back on from the same screen. It keeps its data, so re enabling it later costs you nothing.
And one argument for uninstalling the app you keep trying to hide: you can almost always use the website instead. Instagram, X, Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn all work in a mobile browser. The browser version is slower, has no notifications, and is slightly unpleasant to use, which is the entire point. You have not lost access. You have lost the frictionless version, and the frictionless version was the problem.