Here is how to hide apps on Android phones

Hiding the apps you don’t want others see is perhaps one important feature that every Android phone must have in this world where privacy is very important. Sadly, such a feature isn’t available in most Android phones, atleast in the time of writing this post

Third party apps, such as the apps you download and install from Google play store can’t hide apps because hiding an app is a complex process and requires access to the core or system files of Android. This needs root access which is another complex situation. But there is another idea to hide apps in a limited manner

Hiding apps in Android with custom launcher

Perhaps one easy approach to hide apps is by using a custom launcher app that supports this function. The Nova launcher does this although it requires you to install Nova launcher prime which is available in playstore

To hide an app in Nova launcher, assuming you’re a nova launcher prime user, go to Nova Settings > App Drawer > Apps > Hide apps. Now choose the apps you want hide from app drawer

Conclusion

Although the apps you selected to be hidden no longer will appear in the drawer of nova launcher, it can still be found by searching those apps in Nova’s search feature. Search feature can be disabled but then you will have to unhide the apps to show them again. It’s not perfect when it comes to keeping the privacy but it will help to some extent