iPhone Privacy: How to Hide Alerts & Notifications on Your iPhone & iPad

By Hallei Halter Updated 07/14/2020

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When your iPhone is locked, you can glance at your notifications previews to see if you need to respond to messages or open another app, but that means other people can read your text notifications, too. Fortunately, you don't have to hide alerts altogether to ensure your privacy. Instead, we'll show you how to hide notification previews, so they're only visible when your iPhone or iPad is unlocked. If you found this tip because you want to learn to hide text messages, that's not what this tip is about, but we have a different article about how to hide messages on your iPhone.

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How to Hide Alerts on Your iPhone & iPad

Depending on how much privacy you desire, you can set your Lock screen notifications to appear only when your iPhone is unlocked, or never.

Open the Settings app.
Tap Notifications.

Tap Show Previews.
Tap When Unlocked, or Never.

Now your notification previews will be private while your phone is locked.
Just glance at your iPhone with Face ID or place your finger on the Touch ID sensor, and the preview text will appear.

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Author Details

Hallei Halter

Hallei is a 2018 graduate of Maharishi University of Management with a BFA in Creative & Professional Writing. She's currently working on a novel about people using witchcraft to clean their houses.

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