How one can use the brand new Personal House characteristic in Android 15

Whereas there aren’t quite a lot of new options in Android 15, it does provide some helpful additions to your telephone — and some of the fascinating known as “Personal House.” Consider it as a separate app vault that locks away specified apps in your Android system.

In fact, the principle lockscreen already stops different folks from accessing your telephone, however Personal House places an additional barrier in place. The concept is that when you lend somebody your system to make a name or have a look at a photograph, they gained’t by chance (or intentionally) stumble into one thing they shouldn’t. It’s additionally an additional security web in case your telephone is misplaced or stolen whereas it’s unlocked.

I attempted the characteristic on a Pixel 8 telephone operating Android 15. Right here’s the way it works.

Now, everytime you need to go to your non-public area, simply scroll to the underside of the app drawer, faucet on the padlock icon, and authenticate (utilizing both a biometric methodology like fingerprint recognition, or a PIN).

You possibly can’t drag apps out and in of your non-public area — it’s important to set up them. Consider it nearly like a very completely different Android system. If you’re inside the area, faucet the Set up button so as to add new apps, and long-press on an app icon and select Uninstall to take away them.

You possibly can obtain notifications from apps within the non-public area, however solely when it’s unlocked. To make use of the identical instance as I used above, it’s successfully like a separate system, and when the area is locked, it’s such as you’ve turned off that system. For that reason, Google doesn’t advocate utilizing it to retailer apps that may have to ship you essential info. 

When you’ve unlocked your non-public area, it stays open on the app drawer till you lock it once more through the Lock button. It’s also possible to have the area lock mechanically in sure conditions: this and different choices might be configured by tapping on the gear icon within the non-public area window.

Notice which you could’t switch your non-public area to a brand new telephone. The usual Android-to-Android setup course of gained’t embody any non-public area apps. You’ll have to start out the non-public area once more from scratch, although you’ll be able to sign up with the identical Google account you used for the non-public area on the older telephone, which is able to restore your information in apps equivalent to Gmail and Google Hold.