Using App Locker to Prevent Access to Apps on the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T

You can encrypt your applications and prevent them from being easily accessed on the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T with its built-in App Locker feature.

There are a large number of security applications in the Play Store that promise to prevent people from accessing protected applications. Some of these are better than others, but most can be bypassed because of how Android handles 3rd-party applications. OnePlus is aware of this and has implemented their own type of application protection feature into OxygenOS called App Locker.

This feature is hidden in the Security section of the Settings application but can be easily enabled.

Naturally, in order to use this App Locker feature on the OnePlus 3 or the OnePlus 3T, you’ll first need to have a PIN, pattern or password setup for your lock screen. You also have the option of setting up a fingerprint of two if you want to do that as well. It’s entirely up to you, but you at least have to have a layer of security setup on your device. Once that is done, you can follow the steps outlined below to preventing access to certain applications.

OnePlus 3 App Locker

1. Launch the Settings application
2. Scroll down to the Personal section
3. Then tap on the Security & Fingerprint option
4. Scroll down to the Privacy section
5. And tap on the App Locker option
6. Input your PIN, pattern or password to gain access
7. Tap on the toggle icon for each application you want to protect
8. Then Tap the Home button to go back to the Home Screen

Explanation

There really isn’t much more to it when it comes to picking which applications you want to protect and which applications you don’t care about. Granted, this feature will not be useful for those who don’t hand their phone out to other people. Still, there are many times when you may choose to hand your phone to someone so they can see a photo, the contents of a particular application, or even to just use the phone and call someone.

Even if it’s rarely, and even if you think you can trust someone, it can be risky to hand your unlocked phone to someone. They can always tap the Home button and browse through the Home Screen or even open up your App Drawer without you knowing. So to prevent this we first need to launch the Settings application. From here, we can scroll down a bit and then tap on the Security and Fingerprint option. Inside this sub-menu you’ll find another option called App Locker.

After you have entered your PIN, pattern or password, you’ll be presented with a list of all the applications and games you have installed on your OnePlus 3 or OnePlus 3T. By default, the toggles next to these applications and games will be set to off. This means you have no proactively gone out and protected these applications from being opened. So you’ll want to go through this list and figure out which ones you want to lock down and which ones you don’t care about.

Simply tap on the toggle icon to the right of the application or game you want to restrict access to and it will seem like that application or game has disappeared. In actuality though, the application or game has been moved up to the top of the list and will be sitting in a completely separate list. This page has two lists with one being a list of applications you have chosen to encrypt and lock down and the other being a list of applications and games that are freely accessible.

You can always come back here and change your mind about which applications or games are or are not protected anymore so feel free to experiment here if you’d like. When you have tapped on one of these toggles and moved an application to the Encrypted list, that means the application will require  you to enter your PIN, pattern or password in order to access it. You can see an example of this in the image above as it was tested on the DiskInfo application I have installed.

I talked about this in the video, but you should know that once you have granted access to an application (by entering your PIN, pattern or password), then that application can be freely accessible until you lock your device again. So if you open the application and enter your credentials, you can tap the Home button and then launch the application again to open it like normal. It’s not until you press the Power button to lock the device that the application will be locked down again until the PIN, pattern or password is entered.