'Private Space' feature is finally coming to your Google Pixel

The Google Pixel devices, almost-stock Android, have never been the most full-featured on the market, but the company still ships major improvements from time to time, and it looks like ‘Private Space’ will be next.

If you have ever wanted to have the option to easily ‘hide’ some specific apps, images or videos, this may interest you.

Android 14 QPR2 Beta 1 has been available since yesterday, and users have been ‘gutting’ the update to see what new features they find. Mishaal Rahman, a renowned Android expert, found a new ‘Private Space’ settings page with interesting options.

In case you don’t know, ‘Private Space’ is a way to keep specific files or apps hidden from your main profile. It is not an app ‘blocker’, but rather it ‘transports’ them to a separate space within your profile, which you can only access with your biometric data or passwords.

‘Private Space’ is also different from the ‘multi-profile’ feature already present on Android, since instead of creating a completely new user profile, the hidden space will be linked to the profile from where you hid your apps or files. To make it simpler, think of a kind of ‘sandcastle’ on a beach.

Feature under development, not implemented yet

That said, Mishaal Rahman found that the ‘Private Space’ settings page offers some configuration options, as well as allowing you to create and delete it. For now, as the feature is not fully implemented, no further details of its operation are known (such as whether it will allow the creation of multiple ‘Private Spaces’, whether any type of app or file can be hidden, etc.).

The feature is likely to receive more configuration options as it is developed, and so far it is in very early stages. So, for now there is no timeline for the implementation of ‘Private Space’ on Google Pixel devices. However, being part of the Android 14 QPR2 Beta 1, it is possible (but not guaranteed) that it will happen in March 2024 Pixel feature drop.

It seems that Google wants to catch up with useful features in its approach to Android for its phones. ‘Private Space’ equivalents have already been available for some time in custom skins from manufacturers such as OPPO and Huawei, but Google Pixel users will also be able to enjoy something similar at some point.