How to Lock Notes on iPhone

To lock a note on iPhone, open the note, tap the More button (the three dots), then tap Lock. The first time, you choose how to lock notes: with your iPhone passcode or with a separate Notes password. After that, the note opens only with Face ID, Touch ID or that password. Here are the full steps, which lock to pick, and what Notes can’t lock.

How to lock a note

1. Open Notes and open the note you want to lock.
2. Tap the More button (the three dots in the top corner).
3. Tap Lock.
4. If this is your first locked note, choose Use iPhone Passcode or set a Notes password (with a hint). You can also allow Face ID or Touch ID.
5. The note shows a lock icon at the top. Its contents are hidden once Notes locks again.

To open it later, tap the note, tap View Note, and use Face ID, Touch ID or your password. A locked note stays open for a few minutes, then locks again when you close Notes or your iPhone goes to sleep.

To remove the lock, open the note, tap More, then tap Remove. This removes the lock on every device signed in to the same Apple Account.

iPhone passcode or a separate password?

This is the most important choice, because it decides who can open your locked notes.

Your iPhone passcode is the easy option. There’s nothing new to remember, and you can’t get locked out of your notes as long as you know your passcode. But anyone who knows your iPhone passcode, like a partner, a parent or a friend who watched you type it, can open them too.

A separate Notes password keeps notes shut even from someone who knows your iPhone passcode. You use the same Notes password on all your devices. The catch: Apple can’t recover it. If you forget it, the notes locked with it can’t be opened. Pick something you’ll remember and write it down somewhere safe, away from your phone.

You can change this later in Settings → Apps → Notes → Password. That’s also where you turn Face ID or Touch ID for notes on or off.

Either way, locked notes stored in iCloud are protected with end-to-end encryption, so Apple can’t read them.

What you can’t lock in Notes

If you don’t see Lock in the More menu, the note is one of these:

• A note with tags, PDFs, audio, video, or Pages, Numbers or Keynote files attached.
• A note shared with other people. Stop sharing it first: open the note, tap the sharing button, then Manage Shared Note → Stop Sharing.
• A note in a Gmail, Yahoo or other IMAP account. Only notes in iCloud or On My iPhone can be locked.
• A note in an account signed in with a Managed Apple Account (often a work or school account).

Photos and document scans made in Notes can be locked. That’s why a locked note works well for a few scanned IDs or receipts, but not for a folder of PDFs. See how to scan a passport or ID with your iPhone.

What a locked note still shows

Locking hides the contents, not the note itself:

• The title stays visible in the notes list. The first line of a note becomes its title, so start a private note with something plain like “Notes” or “Misc.”
• Search finds a locked note by its title, but not by what’s inside.
• Anyone scrolling through Notes can see that a locked note exists.

If you’d rather nobody opens Notes at all, you can also lock the whole app with Face ID. See how to lock apps on iPhone.

If you forget your Notes password

Apple can’t unlock notes for you. What you can do is reset the password, so new notes use a new one:

1. Go to Settings → Apps → Notes → Password.
2. Tap Reset Password and enter your Apple Account password.
3. Set a new Notes password and hint, or switch to your iPhone passcode.

Notes you locked with the old password stay locked. If you later remember it, open the note with the old password and Notes offers to update it to your current one.

When a locked note isn’t enough

A locked note with its own password is a good home for a few sensitive notes, scans or photos. It gets clumsy when you have many photos, videos or PDFs, since those don’t all fit in locked notes. Our comparison of the Hidden album, locked notes and photo vaults lays out the trade-offs, and how to lock a folder on iPhone covers the other built-in locks.

For larger collections, Easy Vault encrypts photos, videos and files on your iPhone or iPad behind its own pattern or password, separate from your iPhone passcode. You can send a PDF or photo to it from any app with Save to Easy Vault in the share sheet, and back it up to iCloud encrypted, with a recovery key in case you forget your password. See how to store IDs and documents on your phone.

Quick checklist

1. Open the note, tap More, tap Lock.
2. Use a separate Notes password if anyone else knows your iPhone passcode, and write it down.
3. Keep the first line plain, since the title stays visible.
4. Remove PDFs, audio, video and tags if Lock doesn’t appear.