How to Lock Notes on iPhone (Passcode or Password)

To lock a note on iPhone, open the note, tap the More button (three dots), and tap Lock. The first time, you'll choose between your device passcode and a separate Notes password. Pick the separate password if you want the note protected from people who know your phone passcode. Locked notes are encrypted, and you can open them with Face ID if you allow it.

Step 1: Choose how notes are locked

You can set this up in Settings beforehand, or let iOS prompt you the first time you lock a note. Settings gives you more control.

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Apps, then Notes (on iOS 17 and earlier, just Notes).
3. Tap Password.
4. If you have more than one Notes account, choose the account (for example iCloud or On My iPhone).
5. Choose Use Device Passcode or Create Password.
6. If you create a password, add a hint.
7. Turn Face ID (or Touch ID) on or off.

Using the device passcode requires iCloud Keychain to be on for iCloud notes.

Passcode or separate password?

A separate password is the only way, among Apple's built-in apps, to protect content with a secret that's different from your phone passcode. If that's why you're here, choose it, and choose a good one. Our password strength checker helps.

If you also turn on Face ID, anyone who can unlock the note with your face can open it, which is usually fine, but means the password isn't the only key.

Step 2: Lock a note

1. Open the note in Notes.
2. Tap the More button (three dots) in the top right.
3. Tap Lock.
4. Enter your password or passcode if asked.

The note now shows a lock icon at the top. It stays open until you tap that lock icon, close Notes, or lock the iPhone. Unlocking one locked note generally unlocks the others in that account too, until you lock them again, close Notes, or lock the phone.

To remove the lock, open the note, tap More, and tap Remove.

What can't be locked

Apple doesn't allow locking:

• Notes with tags
• Notes containing PDFs, audio, or video
• Notes with Keynote, Pages, or Numbers documents
• Shared notes (stop sharing first)
• Notes in IMAP accounts such as Gmail or Yahoo
• Any notes if you're signed in with a Managed Apple Account

Photos and scanned documents are fine, which makes locked notes a reasonable place for a few document scans. See how to store ID documents safely on your phone.

What stays visible

A locked note's contents are hidden, but the note still shows in your list with a lock icon. The title (its first line) may be visible in the list, and you might see the date it was edited. Give sensitive notes a dull first line, like "Misc," rather than "Bank PINs."

If you forget the password

This is the part to know before you rely on it.

• Apple can't recover it. Notes locked with a forgotten custom password stay locked.
• Resetting doesn't unlock old notes. In Settings > Apps > Notes > Password, you can tap Reset Password. New notes use the new password; existing ones still need the old one.
• Different notes, different passwords. If you've reset before, you may have notes locked with different passwords. When you open an old note with the old password, iOS offers to update it to the current one.

The hint you set appears after a wrong attempt. Make it useful to you and meaningless to others.

Where locked notes fall short

Locked notes are well built and encrypted, and for a handful of items they're a good choice. They're less good when:

• You have a lot of photos. Notes is a text editor with attachments, not a gallery.
• You want to lock video. It can't.
• You don't want a visible title. The list still shows that locked notes exist.
• You want to keep things off iCloud. iCloud notes sync to all your devices. Use the On My iPhone account for local-only notes (turn it on in Settings > Apps > Notes > "On My iPhone" Account).
• You need a plausible alternative to unlocking. If someone pressures you to open Notes, there's one password and one set of locked notes.

For photos and files: an encrypted vault

If what you're locking is mostly photos, videos, or documents, a dedicated vault fits better.

sigil. is an encrypted vault for iPhone. Like a separate Notes password, it uses its own secret, but it's built around files:

• A sign instead of a password. Each vault's 256-bit key is unlocked by a sign you draw on a 5×5 dot grid, hardened with Argon2id and bound to the phone's secure chip. See pattern encryption.
• Photos and videos together, browsable as a gallery.
• Several vaults, no list. Each sign opens its own vault and the app doesn't show how many exist. See multiple hidden vaults.
• Decoy vault. A decoy pattern opens a vault with harmless photos and erases nothing; your real vault stays hidden.
• Local only, no account. Nothing syncs to us.

Recovery works the same way as with a Notes password: we can't reset it. Instead, sigil. gives you a 12-word recovery phrase when you set up, which you write down and keep offline. There's no cloud backup yet, so if the phone is lost, the vault is too unless you've exported a backup.

Quick tips

• Use Create Password for anything you'd hide from someone who knows your passcode.
• Write the password down somewhere safe, or store it in a password manager.
• Keep sensitive notes in On My iPhone if you don't want them in iCloud.
• Don't lock a note and leave the original photo in your Camera Roll. Delete it there, then from Recently Deleted.
• Tap the lock icon or lock the iPhone when you're done; otherwise unlocked notes can stay open for a while.

For photos specifically, see how to password protect photos on iPhone.