How to show one photo on iPhone without letting people swipe

You want to show someone a photo, and they reach for the screen and swipe. It happens to everyone, and on a phone full of private pictures it can be more than awkward. iOS has a tool for this that most people never find, because it lives in the accessibility settings: Guided Access.

What Guided Access is

Guided Access is an iOS accessibility feature that locks the iPhone to a single app and lets you disable parts of the screen, or touch altogether, until you enter a passcode. It was designed for teachers, parents and people with attention or motor needs, but it is also the most reliable way to hand over a phone showing one thing and nothing else.

Set it up once

You only need to do this the first time.

1. Open Settings › Accessibility › Guided Access.
2. Turn on Guided Access.
3. Tap Passcode Settings › Set Guided Access Passcode and choose a code. It can differ from your device passcode; pick something the other person won’t guess.
4. Optionally turn on Face ID (or Touch ID) in the same screen so you can end sessions faster.

While you are there, you can also set a time limit alert or adjust display auto-lock for Guided Access sessions. Neither is required.

Show a single photo

1. Open Photos and go to the photo you want to show. Zoom or crop the view now if needed, because you won’t be able to change it once touch is off.
2. Triple-click the side button. On an iPhone with a Home button, triple-click the Home button instead.
3. The Guided Access screen appears. Tap Options in the lower-left corner.
4. Turn off Touch. Leave Side Button off too (the default), so the screen can’t be locked and unlocked to escape.
5. Tap Done, then Start in the top-right corner.

The photo is now frozen on screen. Swipes, taps and pinches do nothing, and the person can’t go back to the library or switch apps.

End the session

Triple-click the side button again, enter your Guided Access passcode and tap End. If you turned on Face ID for Guided Access, double-clicking the side button and looking at the phone also works.

Fine-tuning instead of disabling all touch

Turning off Touch is the most foolproof setting. On the Guided Access start screen, you can instead draw circles around areas of the screen to disable them, which keeps the rest of the screen interactive. That is handy for apps with specific buttons you want to block, but it doesn’t work well for photos: the swipe gesture works across the whole image, so a blocked area rarely stops someone moving to the next picture. For photos, turn touch off completely.

Common snags

Triple-click does something else. The triple-click is the Accessibility Shortcut. If more than one feature is assigned to it (such as Magnifier or VoiceOver), you get a menu; pick Guided Access. You can change what is assigned in Settings › Accessibility › Accessibility Shortcut.

The screen goes dark. If Auto-Lock is short, the display may dim during a long viewing. You can set a separate display auto-lock for Guided Access in its settings.

You forgot the Guided Access passcode. If Face ID is enabled for Guided Access, use that. Otherwise, a forced restart ends the session; the steps vary by model and are on Apple Support.

What Guided Access doesn’t do

Guided Access is about controlling the screen, not about privacy in general. A few things are worth keeping in mind:

• It shows exactly what is on screen. Everything visible in the photo, including details in the background, is visible to the person holding the phone. If the photo shows a location or a face you would rather not share, crop a copy first.
• It doesn’t stop a camera. Someone can photograph your screen with their own phone, and Guided Access can’t prevent it.
• It relies on its own passcode. If the Guided Access passcode is short or the same as your device passcode, and the other person knows it, they can end the session and browse freely.
• It ends if the phone restarts. A forced restart exits Guided Access, though the person would still face your Lock Screen afterwards.

Alternatives that avoid handing over your phone

Guided Access is clever, but the safest phone is one that never leaves your hand. Depending on the situation, one of these may be simpler:

Approach	How	Trade-off
Hold the phone yourself	Show the photo without letting go	Easiest, but awkward for close looks
AirDrop one photo	Share › AirDrop to their device	They keep a copy
Send it in Messages	Share › Messages	They keep a copy, and it sits in the thread
Hide the rest first	Hide nearby sensitive photos before showing	Takes time; still lets them browse what isn’t hidden
Guided Access	As above	A minute of setup the first time

Sending a copy is the right answer when the person needs to keep the photo. It is the wrong answer when they shouldn’t keep it, because a copy on someone else’s device is outside your control. If the situation is about children borrowing your phone, see sharing your phone with kids. If it is about a partner scrolling through your camera roll, see partner scrolling your camera roll.

For photos you never want reachable by a stray swipe, hiding them is the more lasting fix. How to hide photos on iPhone and how to lock photos on iPhone cover the options.

Where Velcrypt fits

Guided Access works inside almost any app, including vault apps. It is worth being clear about what that means for Velcrypt: if you open a vault and hand the phone over, the person sees what is on screen, and without Guided Access they could swipe through the album. A vault protects content while it is locked; it can’t protect content you have opened and handed over.

So the habits are the same as with Photos. Show a photo from a vault only when you’re holding the phone, or use Guided Access with touch turned off. When you leave the app, Velcrypt locks automatically after the delay you choose, and hides its content in the app switcher, so a quick handover after you close it reveals nothing.