How to pin screen on Android Lollipop – Privacy and Security

What is screen pinning in Android Lollipop?

  Screen pinning allows you to pin (lock) the screen to a certain app. This  is one of the useful new features in Android Lollipop.

In short, screen pinning in Android Lollipop let you you enable your Android Lollipop device to only show a specific app’s screen. The device is temporally locked in this specific app, and you cannot access any other apps.

Screen pinning is different to kids mode in Samsung devices. Kids mode is more comparable to guest mode in Android Lollipop.

When you may need screen pinning in Android Lollipop?

Screen pinning in Android Lollipop has been anticipated  for long time. At least, some Android users have expected some features similar to this.

In the following scenarios, you will find this screen pinning feature is extremely useful.

• When playing games, you may accidentally tap the home button or back button. This may kill some games, at least it can be very annoying.
• When your colleague wants to borrow your phone for an emergent call, you may not know whether he/she browse your private photos or other files or emails.
• When your little kids want to play a game on your phone, you may be nervous because he/she may open some apps accidentally and may even delete some of your files inadvertently.

Whenever you want to lock your phone screen to a specific app so that the person can ONLY use this specific app, screen pinning in Android Lollipop will be your new handy tool.

How to enable screen pinning in Android Lollipop?

By default, screen pinning is not enabled in Android Lollipop. At least, this is the case for Google Nexus (Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7 and Nexus 9) devices and Motorola Moto devices (Moto X including Moto X 2nd Gen, Moto G including Moto G 2nd Gen, and Moto E).

You need enable screen pinning in your Android Lollipop first. You need enable this feature only once.  Of course, you can also disable screen pinning at any time.

To enable screen pinning in Android Lollipop, you may follow these steps.

Step 1: Go to Settings–Security

You can access your phone settings from All Apps–Settings, or from Quick Setting.

Tap Security in the Settings. You need scroll down to Advanced section to find the screen pinning as shown below.

Step 2: Tap screen pinning

Tap Screen pinning as shown above to proceed.

Step 3: Drag the switch from left to right

After tapping Screen pinning in the previous step, you will get the screen pinning setting  page.

The only setting is the switch as shown below. You can turn on or turn off this feature.  No other settings.

When it is off, you can drag the switch from left to right to turn on screen pinning.

If it is on (indicated by the light blue color), you can drag the switch from right to left to turn off screen pinning in Android Lollipop as shown below.

Step 4: Screen pinning is now on.

After you drag the switch to right side, you are ready to use your Android Lollipop screen pinning.

How to use screen pinning in Android Lollipop?

To use Android Lollipop screen pinning, you may follow these steps.

Step 1: Start the app you want to pin

You need start the app which you want to pin to the screen.

You can use literally any apps on the phone.

Step 2: Tap Overview button

Once the app is started, you can tap the Overview button as shown below (red).

For most apps, if you want, you can tap Home button (green)as shown below instead of the Overview button.