11 Useful Tips to Keep Your Android Phone Private

(These settings will be different for different versions of Android and different phones.)

If you have an Android 13 phone, you can find many of these suggestions under Settings > Security. There, you'll find a dashboard with suggestions for how to make your phone safer. If you don't want to spend a lot of time messing with options, this is a good place to start.

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Set up two-factor authentication
Set a good password (and consider disabling fingerprint or face login)
Audit app permissions
Enable automatic updates
Enable Find My Stuff
Keep important messages off the lock screen.
Turn off targeted ads
Check the privacy settings on your Google account.
Quickly stop people from using the camera or microphone
Watch out for your clipboard.
Use encryption from end to end in Messages.

Set up two-factor authentication

Why: Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to your account.

What to do: If you haven't already, you should set up two-step verification for your Google account. To enable it:

Sign in to your Google account on your phone by going to the myaccount.google.com/security page.
Choose 2-Step Verification, then log in again.
Tap "Try It Now," then follow the instructions on the screen to confirm the login and get backup codes.
You should also set up either a security key or an authentication app.

Set a good password (and consider disabling fingerprint or face login)

If you haven't already, it's time to set a passcode on your phone. Go to Settings, then Security, then Lock Screen.

Audit app permissions

From Android 11 on, the operating system automatically resets permissions for apps you haven't used in a long time.

You might want to set some apps so that they can only access your "approximate location." This means that an app won't know exactly where you are but will know the general area. While you're here, take a moment to get rid of any apps you no longer use or need.

You might also want to turn off Google's built-in location history, which keeps track of where your phone goes. Under Settings > Privacy > Google location history, you can turn it off.

Enable automatic updates

If you lose your phone and turn on the "Find My Device" feature, you might be able to find it. Even if you can't get your phone back, this feature makes it easy to erase your private information from it.

Open Settings, then go to Security, then Find My Device, and make sure the switch is turned on.

Keep important messages off the lock screen.

Turn off targeted ads

Some apps might then sell the information they've gathered about you, often without your knowledge. You can stop some of these people from sharing information.

What to do: Go to Settings > Privacy > Ads and tap Delete advertising ID. Tap again on the next page to confirm. On the ad settings page, you can turn off personalised ads for your whole Google account.

Check the privacy settings on your Google account.

However, Google gives you some control over what data it collects and how long it keeps it. When turned on, Google uses your search history and where you are to give you more relevant results and ads. If you turn it off, you might see less relevant results. If you use Google Assistant, you can also delete voice recordings from this page.
Google keeps track of where you go with your phone by looking at its location history. On the "Other Google activity" page, you can find comments and answers to surveys, among other
Settings for ads: If you don't like Google's personalised ads, you can turn them off.
Place answers, news preferences, and product survey responses are all things you might want to delete or look over.

Quickly stop people from using the camera or microphone

If this worries you, you can set up an alert to let you know when an app uses your clipboard.

What to do: Go to Settings > Privacy and make sure that Show access to the clipboard is turned on.

Use encryption from end to end in Messages.

You can only use end-to-end encryption in a conversation with someone else who is also using the Messages app

What to do: This feature may already be turned on in your phone, but you can check. You could also think about using a different, cross-platform, encrypted messaging app like Signal or WhatsApp.