Guides · 7 min read
Set up PWA Lock on your iPhone: the complete guide
Create a PWA Lock account, lock your first web app behind a cover and password, add it to your iPhone home screen, and know what to expect when you open it.
THE PWA LOCK BLOG
Guides for a more private home screen.
Plain-language guides to locking web apps on your iPhone home screen, keeping downloads out of Photos, and what a privacy tool can and cannot promise.
Written by the people who build PWA Lock. We say plainly what the product does not do. RSS feed.
Start here
The three articles most readers need first.
Guides · 7 min read
Can you password-protect a website on your iPhone?
Yes, in three ways: the site's login, Apple's Face ID lock or Private Browsing, or a separate lock in front of the site. Which fits depends on your worry.
Product · 7 min read
Starter, Personal or Pro: which PWA Lock plan fits you?
How to choose between PWA Lock's Starter, Personal and Pro plans: what differs, what is identical on all three, what a request is, and how billing works.
Guides
Step-by-step setup and how-to articles.
Guides · 7 min read
Add a website to your iPhone home screen: setup and fixes
The Safari steps to add any website to your iPhone home screen as a web app, what changes once it is installed, and fixes for the usual problems.
Guides · 7 min read
Can you password-protect a website on your iPhone?
Yes, in three ways: the site's login, Apple's Face ID lock or Private Browsing, or a separate lock in front of the site. Which fits depends on your worry.
Guides · 7 min read
Set up PWA Lock on your iPhone: the complete guide
Create a PWA Lock account, lock your first web app behind a cover and password, add it to your iPhone home screen, and know what to expect when you open it.
Guides · 7 min read
Set up separate locks for several iPhone web apps
How to give a journal, a chat app and a forum each its own cover, lock password and icon in PWA Lock, which plan fits how many apps, and what can go wrong.
Guides · 7 min read
What is a PWA? A plain-language guide for iPhone users
What a progressive web app is, how to install one on an iPhone from Safari, what it can and cannot do, and how it differs from a bookmark or an App Store app.
Privacy
What protects what, and where your data actually lives.
Privacy · 7 min read
Before clearing website data: protect your local web-app files
Clearing Safari website data or deleting a home-screen web app also deletes the files kept inside it, including a PWA Lock vault. What to save first, and how.
Privacy · 7 min read
Home-screen web app vs Safari tab: cookies, logins and storage
Why a home-screen web app can be logged out or hold different files than Safari: what iOS copies at install, what stays separate, and what it means for privacy.
Privacy · 7 min read
What PWA Lock protects, and what it does not
The trust page for PWA Lock: which situations the lock covers, what passes through our servers, what stays on your phone, and how to check it before you pay.
Privacy · 7 min read
Where do iPhone web downloads go? Files, Photos and browser storage
A file saved from a website on an iPhone lands in Files, in Photos or in the browser's own storage. How to tell which, and what each place does with it.
Compare
Honest comparisons to help you choose the right tool.
Compare · 7 min read
How to choose a private file app for your iPhone
Hidden album, the Files app, a vault app such as Keepsafe or PWA Lock's vault: PWA Lock's makers compare lock, encryption, backup, export, price and loss.
Compare · 7 min read
iPhone app locks, private browsing and PWA Lock compared
Apple's app lock, Safari Private Browsing, a website's own login, the device passcode and PWA Lock: what each controls on an iPhone and which fits your need.
Fixes
When something does not behave the way you expected.
Fixes · 7 min read
Why a website login may fail inside a web-app wrapper
A site's login loops or sends you elsewhere behind PWA Lock? What a wrapper changes, which sign-in designs break, what to try, and what cannot be fixed.
Product
Plans, features and how PWA Lock works under the hood.
Product · 7 min read
Cover apps: what a calculator on your home screen can hide
What a PWA Lock cover app is, what each of the seven covers really does, how the cover passcode is entered and recorded, and what a cover can and cannot hide.
Product · 7 min read
Starter, Personal or Pro: which PWA Lock plan fits you?
How to choose between PWA Lock's Starter, Personal and Pro plans: what differs, what is identical on all three, what a request is, and how billing works.
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