• General

  • Work Profile vs. User Profile

As much as I want to like user profiles, they have some glaring inconveniences that would be problematic at least for me. The first is notifications - while there is now notification forwarding, it seems to never show notification content, even if the content would be available on the lock screen. Switching between user profiles is also a big pain requiring many extra interactions (swipe down to get the notification tray, swipe down again, tap to pull up the set of user profiles, tap on the one I want, and then wait several seconds for the fingerprint sensor to wake up, or type in the passcode). Finally, with work profiles you can e.g. be on a call in discord in the main profile, while using an app from the work profile at the same time; as far as I understand it, this isn't possible with user profiles. For my usecases these inconveniences make user profiles just really not work. Are there any ways in which these pain points might be addressed in the future?

    pythoner6 I am also interested in your use case. The question is, why do you need two different profiles (work or user) at all?

    As I understand it, the apps are already in a sandbox and cannot interact with each other without explicit permission. The additional layer of a second profile would be redundant in that case. The only additional information you reveal is the other apps installed in the profile. I don't know if this information is really valuable to hide.

      I can't say I fully understand exactly how things are sandboxed so maybe the profile isn't too necessary from that perspective. However the main thing is that it lets me have a second copy of apps (signed into different accounts), and be more sure I'm not accidentally giving permissions I didn't mean to. E.g. if I accidentally give permissions to see contacts, in the work profile I don't have any contacts.

        pythoner6 I'm also still trying to figure out the best way to use profiles.

        If you want to use different accounts in the same application, different profiles are the way to go. However, you should be aware that using different identities in different profiles doesn't provide any privacy benefits without tweaking other things. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out that you are the same person using two accounts.

          8 months later

          If I may resurrect this thread...

          I need a couple of apps that require Play Services to work. I don't want to install Play Services in my main profile or have Play Services access anything on my phone or be able to run in the background when I'm not using one of the apps in the other profile. But I want to get notifications from these apps and not to be inconvenienced too much.

          The apps are:

          • various banking apps that most likely won't run without Play Services
          • Ring doorbell app and another proprietary app connecting to my burglar alarm, both need perfectly working notifications to be useful
          • Kakaotalk (Korean messenger), needs working notifications

          For this use case would a work profile be enough?

            DeletedUser28 I had same requirements and opted to use Shelter and install Google Play (and services) in the work profile only. Then I install any apps I need to get from Play in that profile. That way whatsapp, google services etc can't see my contacts, files, sms etc, except for what is in the work profile, which is nothing.

              2 months later

              I've been experimenting with a work profile as a gatekeeper for Google Play Services. One thing I have found is that some apps that are only available from the Play Store need Play Services to be running every time you launch them, while others do not. For example I needed Play Services running on my first run of JuiceSSH, because I needed to get the app to recognise my Pro licence. After that it ran just fine without. So I can run my work profile with Play Services frozen most of the time. PayPal won't run without Play Services (though I believe the web app will work just fine without.)

              For cases where I want a high level of privacy, such as banking apps, I still keep separate user profiles.

              9 months later

              can someone share location of the work profile creation page in settings? i can see there is an app called Work Setup looks like it a system app, but nowhere on me P8 i can choose to create a work profile. when i enable multiple users feature options to create a user profile and/or guest profile there is absolutely no work profile.

                was this all spoken in relation to stock android? i just realized after checking the links from above. never mind then.

                Themble thank you, the fact that there is already an app Work Setup would make i
                t harder for me to figure this out. till recent i easily managed to keep my setup very minimalist if not ascetic, by following one rule that i have come up to way before i discovered GOS and gladly saw that gos devs are also recommending it. it is to keep as little apps as possible and stick to web browser services. never had an issue, until work required me to use MS Teams which also can be achieved with web browser, but i guess this is the point when decrease in convenience makes it worth to finally make use of this bulletproof wall GOS provides us to keep untrusted apps in control and still be able to benefit from them. can you in couple words tell me the key pros and cons between the user vs work profile please?