This Pixel privateness function makes money-saving apps extra tolerable

[ad_1] <img class="e_ng" decoding="async" loading="eager" sizes="(min-width: 64rem) 51.25rem, 80vw" title="mcdonalds loyalty app" srcset="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-64w-36h.jpg 64w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-1000w-563h.jpg 1000w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-1920w-1080h.jpg 1920w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-1536w-864h.jpg 1536w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-675w-380h.jpg 675w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-300w-170h.jpg 300w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-1280w-720h.jpg 1280w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-840w-472h.jpg 840w" alt="mcdonalds loyalty app" src="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/mcdonalds-loyalty-app-scaled.jpg"/> Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority

Costs at quick meals chains, eating places, and even grocery shops have spiraled uncontrolled over the previous couple of years. Fortunately, not all hope is misplaced — for those who’re a savvy shopper, you may know that one of the best ways to avoid wasting actual cash is to test for loyalty program reductions and limited-time provides. The one drawback? Most of those provides require you to obtain every firm’s app and test into them infrequently.

If putting in a dozen completely different apps feels like a privateness nightmare, I wholeheartedly agree. However fortunately, I’ve discovered a method to make use of these apps with out the downsides — and it’s all because of a Pixel function that has existed since final October.

The hidden price of financial savings

<img class="e_ng" decoding="async" loading="lazy" sizes="(min-width: 64rem) 51.25rem, 80vw" title="starbucks loyalty app splash screen" srcset="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-64w-36h.jpg 64w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-1000w-563h.jpg 1000w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-1920w-1080h.jpg 1920w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-1536w-864h.jpg 1536w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-675w-380h.jpg 675w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-300w-170h.jpg 300w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-1280w-720h.jpg 1280w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-840w-472h.jpg 840w" alt="starbucks loyalty app splash screen" src="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/starbucks-loyalty-app-splash-screen-scaled.jpg"/> Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority

Firm-specific apps like Goal, Walgreens, 7-Eleven, and Wendy’s have a tendency to supply nice offers, no less than infrequently, however I’ve discovered residing with these apps to be a headache. The primary drawback is storage and muddle on my telephone. Even when I ignore the price of storage, every icon takes up visible area within the app drawer and it’s annoying to scroll previous dozens of largely unused apps each single time.

Whereas the provides are sometimes nice, most loyalty apps do not respect your time or privateness.

Then there’s the background exercise. Most corporations need you to put in their app as a substitute of a web site in order that they will sync knowledge, sneak in notifications like reminders about new menu gadgets, or passively monitor your location and searching habits within the background. It’s not at all times that dangerous, in fact, however multiplied throughout a handful of chains, it will probably all add as much as a noticeable enhance in battery drain and knowledge utilization. Privateness is the opposite massive concern. I’ve turned off notifications and most permissions for these apps, however they will nonetheless doubtlessly acquire data like which Google accounts I've logged into my telephone.

For a very long time, I restricted myself to preserving only one or two of those apps on my telephone and satisfied myself that the additional financial savings weren’t value signing away my knowledge to each single firm on the market. After all, that’s not supreme — saving cash issues greater than ever on this period of ever-increasing inflation. So after I discovered that the Pixel’s Personal Area function might give me one of the best of each worlds, financial savings and privateness, I jumped on it.

How the Pixel’s Personal Area fixes the issue

<img class="e_ng" decoding="async" loading="lazy" sizes="(min-width: 64rem) 51.25rem, 80vw" title="android 15 pixel private space" srcset="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space.jpg 2000w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-64w-36h.jpg 64w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-1000w-563h.jpg 1000w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-1920w-1080h.jpg 1920w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-1536w-864h.jpg 1536w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-675w-380h.jpg 675w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-300w-170h.jpg 300w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-1280w-720h.jpg 1280w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-840w-472h.jpg 840w" alt="android 15 pixel private space" src="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space.jpg"/> Rita El Khoury / Android Authority

Personal Area is a privacy-oriented function, first launched alongside Android 15 final 12 months. Whereas it’s not precisely a Pixel-exclusive function, you gained’t discover it on many different telephones. Motorola and Samsung don’t embrace it of their Android skins, for instance, however each manufacturers provide Safe Folder as their very own first-party various. ASUS does assist it, although, as does Sony.

Nonetheless, if you allow Personal Area, you get what’s primarily a secondary person profile with its personal authentication, app listing, and even Google account. Something you put in inside Personal Area is closely sandboxed and remoted from the remainder of your telephone.

In addition to the privateness side, I discover that preserving my least used apps within the Personal Area additionally cuts down on muddle. Something you progress into it disappears out of your principal app drawer and search outcomes till you unlock the part. With all of those advantages, it’s simple to see how this setup might be invaluable. Starbucks, Kroger, and even spammy procuring apps like Temu can all reside in Personal Area, out of sight and out of thoughts till it’s time to test for a deal.

Apps I do not belief or need working within the background go straight to Personal Area.

I’m not claiming that Personal Area will magically clear up each privateness concern. In spite of everything, these apps nonetheless monitor your utilization as you employ them, but it surely does make the general expertise way more tolerable. I've set the function to mechanically lock all of its contents each time I lock my telephone, which signifies that the periods are very short-lived.

The primary disadvantage to the function is that apps in Personal Area can’t reliably ship notifications. As soon as the area is locked, these apps keep asleep till you open it once more. However for me, that’s extra of a profit than an issue. The entire level of placing these apps there may be to maintain them from pestering me with alerts or quietly sustaining an information connection within the background.

<img class="e_ng" decoding="async" loading="lazy" sizes="(min-width: 64rem) 51.25rem, 80vw" title="android 15 pixel private space double instances amazon uber chatgpt" srcset="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt.jpg 2000w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-64w-36h.jpg 64w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-1000w-563h.jpg 1000w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-1920w-1080h.jpg 1920w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-1536w-864h.jpg 1536w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-675w-380h.jpg 675w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-300w-170h.jpg 300w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-1280w-720h.jpg 1280w, https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt-840w-472h.jpg 840w" alt="android 15 pixel private space double instances amazon uber chatgpt" src="https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/android-15-pixel-private-space-double-instances-amazon-uber-chatgpt.jpg"/> Rita El Khoury / Android Authority

Lastly, I preserve a separate Google account logged into Personal Area — and I guarantee that I solely ever use it for advertising and marketing sign-ups and loyalty packages. That method, after I must log right into a fast-food or retail app, I can do it with this burner account as a substitute of handing over my principal Gmail tackle. It offers me peace of thoughts that my main inbox gained’t be flooded with promotions, and if considered one of these corporations inevitably suffers an information breach, I’m not exposing the account I depend on for all the things else.

As an apart, I’ve additionally discovered it helpful to duplicate a number of apps inside Personal Area that I already use in my principal profile. I take advantage of Google Images through my burner account, for instance, so I can rapidly retailer scanned IDs, receipts, and different paperwork with out mixing them in with private photographs on my main account. The entire Personal Area setup is versatile sufficient that you just don’t need to restrict your self to only one use case.

On the finish of the day, I’d quite not have to put in a dozen completely different apps simply to avoid wasting a couple of dollars now and again. However since that’s the fact we reside in, Personal Area is one of the best ways I’ve discovered to maintain the muddle and knowledge harvesting underneath management whereas nonetheless benefiting from each final provide on the market.