How to use Controlled Access on iPhone.

Guided access for iPhone is a useful tool for those who want to focus on the task at hand, as well as for parents.

These days, it’s easy to get distracted by the various beeps, beeps, hums and hums coming from your phone. When you’re trying to complete a task at hand or just want to watch a movie without interruptions, the iPhone’s Guided Access feature can help. It’s also a good parental control tool if you ever decide to hand your phone over to a child.

Simply put, this feature restricts the phone to just one app and even lets you decide which features of said app will work while Guided Access is active. It’s like a customized Do Not Disturb mode that helps you focus on what you’re doing without being tempted to play your mobile game because you just earned some coins or checked your Instagram followers and likes when you should be working or studying. With Guided Access, parents can prevent young children from accessing anything on their personal devices other than the app they are allowed to use for screen time. You can pre-set a controlled access profile and start a session whenever you want.

Using Guided Access is easy with any of the top iPhone X and newer, including the iPhone 14. It takes just a few steps.

Go to Settings, Availabilityand scroll down to Guided access.
Enable manual access by moving the slider right until it turns green.
Determine a Manager access password. You can use your iPhone passcode if you want to remember something easily, or even use Face ID.
Determine a Deadline if desired, selects the desired sound that will play and the audio display of the session time.
You can choose to rotate Accessibility shortcut enabled or disabled while a controlled access session is in progress. When it’s enabled, triple-clicking the side button will show the accessibility link.
You can also adjust Automatic screen lock To change the amount of time before your iPhone automatically locks when you’re in the middle of a session with a guide, from 30 seconds to 15 minutes or never.
After setting these parameters, open the app that you want to use during the session with the guide.
Triple tap the button on the right side of the phone and select from the pop-up window Guided access.
You can draw a circle around the areas of the app you want to disable, then select Start at the top right and those areas will be grayed out and unavailable.
According to Possibilitiesavailable at the bottom left, you can also do things like lock the volume button and set time limits from one minute to a full 24 hours.
Now the app will be the only one you can access until you turn off guided access or expired. If you’ve selected a section to disable (for example, the top-right corner where you can switch profiles in the Netflix app), that specific feature of the selected app will also be unavailable.
To disable controlled access, triple tap the right button Uncheck Manager Access again and enter the six-digit code.

Why should you use Guided Access? First, guided access is a good way to help you focus on the task at hand. For example, if you are working on a document or reading an email. book on your iPhone and don’t want to be disturbed, you can turn on Guide Access. The phone then effectively becomes an e-reader. You will not be notified of incoming social media tags or messages, emails. emails, mobile game app rewards, phone calls or other distractions.

Second, as mentioned, Guided Access is useful for parents who occasionally hand their iPhone to their child to keep them busy for a while. That way, they can’t dive in and access personal information. Young children can easily (and accidentally) send a message, view inappropriate content, or even delete important information from your device. This is one reason why you should always back up your iPhone to iTunes or another source. But guided access can help you avoid this.

In the screenshot above, I’ve launched Guide Access in the Netflix app and circled the profile icon in the top right. This would allow a child to select and watch an approved movie from their child’s profile when you’re tending to an important phone call, for example, but prevent you from switching to adult profiles to access age-inappropriate content.

Guided Access is convenient in many ways, and with some setup and a few clicks, you can easily turn it on and off.