Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
TL; DR
- Google is preparing a Private Space feature for Android 15 that creates a separate profile where you can save apps.
- This Private Space feature was first spotted in the Android beta a few months ago.
- Google has continued to work on this feature, recently adding new settings to automatically lock your private space, as well as hide sensitive notifications on the lock screen.
Google will release Android 15 later this year and it will be packed with useful new features. One of the most anticipated new features in the upcoming update is Private Space, a feature that lets you install apps in a separate, locked profile that can be hidden at any time. When I first documented the feature last year, it was not yet fully implemented. Although the Private Space feature is not yet live, I can now share more details about its setup process and functionality.
An APK disassembly helps predict features that may arrive on the service in the future based on code in progress. However, it is possible that such anticipated features may not make it to public release.
With the release of Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2.1 earlier this week, more details have emerged about the upcoming Private Space feature within the OS. For starters, the setup flow has been revamped to include more information about the feature, as well as a recommendation to create a new Google Account dedicated to a private space.
The first setup page now tells the user that they do not need to install and download the Google Play Store themselves because it is already pre-installed when the user creates a private space. It also tells the user that their private space cannot be transferred to another device, so they will have to set it up again when they get a new device. Finally, the site also tells the user that anyone who connects their device to a computer or installs a malicious app can access their private space. This last part could be why Android 15 now tries to verify that it’s you when connecting to a computer.
Another setup page tells the user to create a Google account to keep their information private. This is important because otherwise certain actions and data taken by the user may leak out of the private space. This includes “synced photos, files, email, contacts, calendar events, and other data” such as “app download history and recommendations,” “browsing history, bookmarks, and saved passwords,” and “suggested content related to your private activity space applications.”
Finally, it asks if you want to use your existing screen lock or choose a new one to unlock your private space. If you choose a new lock, you can create a new PIN/pattern/password or register a fingerprint to unlock the space (which still requires a PIN/pattern/password).
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
Once you’ve set up your private space, you can access its settings by going to Settings > Security & Privacy > Private Space. Here you can choose when you want to automatically lock your private space, change the screen lock used to unlock your private space, automatically hide your private space from appearing in the app list when it’s locked, allow sensitive notifications to appear on the lock screen when your private space is unlocked or delete your private space.
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
When I first documented the Private Space feature back in December, the “automatically lock private space” and “sensitive lock screen notifications” settings were absent. These features simply provide more control over the visibility of your private space, as the sensitivity of its content will depend entirely on the person using it.
There is another significant change since I last talked about the Private Space feature. The Pixel Launcher app adds support for quickly installing an app in a private space. You will be able to tap the button in your primary profile to install the app on the private profile used for private space.
<string name="install_private_system_shortcut_label">Install in private</string>
Although this feature is not yet active in the latest Android 15 Developer Preview 2 or Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2.1, it is likely to become active in the stable Android 15 release. Unlike the cloned apps feature that never saw the light of day in the stable Android 14 release for the Pixel phones, the Private Space feature sees significant integration with the Pixel Launcher app, suggesting it could be intended as a user-facing feature for Pixel users. But we’ll have to wait and see because there’s no guarantee that Google will actually launch it in a few months. Hopefully it will though, so Pixel users won’t have to download a third-party app drawer to enjoy the functionality that other OEMs have been offering for years.