How to Lock Notes on Your OnePlus Phone

Did you know you could lock your private notes with a password on your OnePlus phone? Yes, the built-in Notes app lets you secure notes with a PIN, pattern, or password. This means if you’ve got personal text, voice recordings, or images (yes, you can add these to notes!), you can protect them from prying eyes. This is a great way to keep sensitive information private, especially if you share your phone with others.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to lock a note in the OnePlus Notes app. I’ll also be showing you how to view them and unlock them if needed.

Lock a Note in OnePlus Notes App

1. Launch the built-in Notes app on your OnePlus smartphone.
2. Open the note you want to lock with a password.
3. Tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner.
4. Choose Lock.
5. You’ll be prompted to set a privacy password first. You can either use a 6-digit PIN or change it to a 4-digit PIN, 4-16 digit PIN, pattern, or alphanumeric password.
6. Once done, you’ll be asked to add a security question and answer followed by a recovery email in case you forget the password.
7. The note will be locked and disappear from the main view.

View Locked Notes in OnePlus

1. Open the Notes app on your OnePlus phone.
2. Swipe left on the option toolbar at the top to reveal the Locked Notes option.
3. Tap on Locked Notes. Enter your privacy password to authenticate.
4. Once done, you’ll be able to see all your notes on this screen.

Unlock a Locked Note on OnePlus

1. View the note using the steps above.
2. Tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner.
3. Tap on Unlock.
4. The note will be unlocked and moved to the main view alongside all your other notes.

Make sure you remember your privacy password and the security question and its answer. I’d also recommend adding a recovery email address correctly. This is because locked notes aren’t backed up to the cloud. Forgetting the password will make it impossible to recover the locked notes.

Alternatively, you can use OnePlus’s built-in App Lock feature in Settings > Security and privacy > App Lock to secure the entire Notes app. However, the option to lock individual notes (described above) is a more discreet feature and doesn’t raise suspicion.

Meanwhile, with OxygenOS 15, the OnePlus Notes app has also gained AI features. You can now have AI format your notes, clean up and polish the text, or even write the remainder of the note using the Continue Writing feature. You can change its tone to formal or casual and even shorten your note into a simple summary or elaborate it into detailed points using the onboard AI.

We’ve covered all the new OxygenOS 15 AI features in a separate article. Be sure to check it out!