Set up PWA Lock on your iPhone: the complete guide

PWA Lock puts a lock page in front of a web app and gives that locked version its own address, which you can add to your iPhone home screen like an app. This guide walks through the whole setup, from creating an account to the first time you unlock the installed app, and explains what the lock does and does not do along the way. It takes about ten minutes.

Before you start

You need three things:

• An iPhone with Safari. The steps below use Safari because it is the browser Apple's guide to web apps describes.
• The address of the web app you want to lock, for example the notes, journal or messaging site you open every day. It must be a public website served over HTTPS. Addresses that start with http:// or point at a device on your home network are refused.
• A payment card for the checkout. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial: the card is saved at checkout and first charged when the trial ends; cancel before then and you pay nothing.

If you are not sure what a web app or a home-screen app is, What is a PWA? explains the terms in plain language first.

Step 1: Create your account and pick a plan

Open pwalock.com in Safari and choose Start free. Enter an email address and a password of at least 12 characters, accept the terms, and create the account. No confirmation email is sent, so the address does not have to be verified; it is how you log in and how we reach you if you ever need to recover the account.

You land on the billing page next. Pick a plan: Starter (2 apps, $5 a month), Personal (6 apps, $6 a month) or Pro (15 apps, $7 a month), billed monthly or yearly. The checkout is run by Creem, our payment partner, which saves your card and starts the 14-day trial. The first charge happens when the trial ends; cancel before then and you pay nothing. Starter, Personal or Pro: which plan fits you? compares them in detail, and you can switch later.

Step 2: Add your first app

Return to the dashboard and choose Add an app. The form has a handful of fields:

Choose the cover you would be comfortable having on your home screen; Cover apps: what a calculator can hide describes each one and what a cover can and cannot do. When you save, the dashboard shows the new app with its address.

Step 3: Open the app and unlock it

On the dashboard, choose Open app. PWA Lock carries your login over to the app's address with a one-time code that expires after 60 seconds, then shows the lock page.

1. If you picked a cover, you see the cover app. Perform the cover passcode, for example the key sequence on the calculator, and the password field appears. A plain lock shows the field straight away.
2. Enter the lock password.
3. The web app loads at its locked address. Everything you do inside it, from opening pages to signing in to the site itself, passes through PWA Lock's servers to the original site and back.

The site's own login is untouched. If the app normally asks you to sign in, it still will, and it remembers you in the same way it does in Safari. If a login step misbehaves, Why a website login may fail inside a web-app wrapper explains the usual causes.

Step 4: Add it to your iPhone home screen

With the app open in Safari at its locked address, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen, and confirm the name. If the sheet shows an Open as Web App switch, leave it on, so the icon opens in its own window rather than as a Safari tab. Apple describes the current menu in its guide to turning a website into an app, linked in the sources below. The icon is the cover app's icon, or a lock for the plain cover, and the name is the app name you chose.

The installed app starts at the lock page, which is the point: nobody who taps the icon sees your app, only the cover. Two things to expect the first time you open it:

• iOS gives an installed web app its own storage, separate from Safari. The first launch may therefore ask you to log in to your PWA Lock account once, then show the lock page. After that, the account login lasts 7 days on that device.
• The lock password is asked every time the app has been closed, hidden or left idle. This is deliberate; see the next section.

If the Share menu does not offer Add to Home Screen, or the icon behaves unexpectedly, Add a website to your iPhone home screen: setup and fixes covers the common causes.

What to expect day to day

The lock closes on its own. When you switch to another app, lock the phone or return to the home screen, PWA Lock relocks the app within a moment. An unlock also expires after 15 minutes by default. Either way, the next tap on the icon shows the cover again and asks for the lock password. If you find this too frequent, that is a sign the app may not be one you need behind a lock.

Your account login is separate. Once every 7 days the installed app asks you to log in to pwalock.com again before the lock page appears. Choosing Log out of all apps on the dashboard ends those logins on every device at once, which is the right move if a device is lost.

The original site is still there. Locking an app through PWA Lock does not change the original website, which remains reachable at its own address for anyone who knows it and has its login. PWA Lock adds a gate at the locked address; it does not replace the site's own security. What PWA Lock protects, and what it does not draws the boundary precisely.

Downloads and the vault. If you set a vault passcode, files you download inside the app are saved into the app's local vault on this device instead of the Files app. The vault is browser storage: it is not encrypted by PWA Lock, not backed up to any server, and clearing website data deletes it. Where do iPhone web downloads go? explains what that means in practice before you rely on it.

When something does not work

Anything else, write to contact@pwalock.com and include the app's address; never include a password.