Telltale clues cheaters use to spot you secretly reading their dodgy DMs & pics

A CHEATER will be paranoid and looking out for signs that YOU’RE snooping on THEM.

And if you’ve had a snoop on their phone, you might have given yourself away. Because there are loads of clues that a cheater will be looking for to see if you’ve tried to catch them out – here, we reveal them all.

Now keep in mind: we’re not advising you to go snooping on other people’s devices. The best route is always to have an open and honest conversation with your partner.

But if you suspect your partner is brazenly betraying you, just keep in mind that there are lots of ways a cheater might catch you probing their mobile.

CLUE #1 – THE BATTERY

The cheater’s battery settings on their phone can give you away.

Go look at your battery settings. Tap on the View All Battery Usage button.

Suddenly you’ll be able to see a list of apps and how much time they’ve been used “on screen” today.

This is meant to let you know what’s causing battery drain.

But if a cheater is savvy, they’ll know that their WhatsApp has been open for five minutes when the didn’t touch it.

Or they might spot that their Photos app was used when they didn’t access it.

There’s no way to delete this info, so it’s a dead giveaway.

CLUE #2 – SCREEN TIME

Screen Time will expose you in a similar way, but it only works if they’ve set it up first.

But if they’re a paranoid person, they probably will have switched it on.

Screen Time on iPhone – or Digital Wellbeing on Android – is designed to help you keep an eye on your phone usage.

It’ll show you what you’re up to, and even let you set limits on your phone usage.

And that’s why it’ll expose your phone-snooping antics to a cheater.

Go into Settings > Screen Time > See All App & Website Activity.

Then look at the section titled Most Used, and tap on an app like WhatsApp or Photos.

It’ll show the exact hour slots that the app was being used. If you had a peek at 3am, the evidence will be right there.

And it’ll even show how much time has been spent on the app overall that day.

CLUE #3 – THE PICK-UPS

Screen Time will also reveal when the phone was first picked up on a given day.

Go to Settings > Screen Time > See All App & Website Activity and then scroll down.

You’ll then hit the Pickups section, which will show how many times your phone has been picked up.

And underneath that, it should say First Pickup.

This will expose a 3am peeking session outright.

Worse still, you can tap on an individual app on the list below to see each hour slot where a specific app was first used after the iPhone was picked up.

If the cheater knows their own iPhone habits, they’ll spot something amiss without much bother.

CLUE #4 – THE APP TRAY

The app tray is where your most recently used apps are hiding.

You can find it by swiping up from the bottom of your Home Screen and keeping your finger held down.

Or on older iPhones, it’s accessed with a double-click of the Home button.

What’s important is that the app tray shows apps in the order that they were last used.

So a cheater might go to bed knowing that Google Chrome was the last app they used – only to find that WhatsApp is first in the app tray when they wake.

It’s a clear sign that WhatsApp was opened while they were sleeping.

One way a snooper might try to conceal their antics is by closing the app afterwards.

But a savvy cheater might check and wonder why their WhatsApp or Photos has been fully quit – even though they didn’t shut it down.

CLUE #5 – APP PRIVACY REPORT

Similar to Screen Time, the App Privacy Report is a feature that monitors your phone’s activity.

And the other similarity is that it needs to be manually turned on before it starts logging behaviour.

The idea is that it gives you a report when certain sensors or bits of data on your phone are accessed.

So you could see if an app was improperly accessing your photos, microphone, or location, for instance.

But it could also reveal if someone was using an app without your knowledge.

You can find it in Settings > Privacy & Security > App Privacy Report.

Then you’ll be able to see a list of apps that have recently accessed data or sensors on your phone.

Be mindful: some of this will be happening in the background. For instance, some apps might access your location even when you’re not using them.

What probably won’t be happening in the background is access to your camera or microphone.

So if either of those shows as active, it’s likely that someone was actually using your phone at the time.

CLUE #6 – STORAGE

Last but certainly not least is the iPhone storage clue.

It’s a very easy way for a cheater to see if a snooper has been browsing through their apps.

Go into Settings > General > iPhone Storage and look for the section with your apps.

This is where you’d normally go to find apps that are taking up too much space, so you can delete them to clean up your mobile.

But if you tap the filter at the top of the list, you can change it from Size to Last Used Date.

This orders apps by when they were most recently used. Normally that’s handy to see if you’re not using apps very often – allowing you to delete them.

But you’ll also be able to see if an app has been opened that you know you haven’t used recently.

A cheater could use this to easily spot if someone else had been using their phone.

For instance, you might have sneaked onto their WhatsApp in the night – but they knew that hadn’t used it as the most recent app.

You’d be caught red-handed.