‘Affair mode’ explained after woman says all cheats will use this phone setting

Most of us have a smartphone, and one woman has warned there is a whole host of apps and hidden phone settings that are making affairs easier to hide than ever before.

With multiple dating apps on the market, plus the good old Instagram DM slide, many cheaters are using technology to find another partner while they're supposedly off the market.

Even the biggest technophobes are finding ways to cover their tracks, thanks to a series of tailor-made apps and services designed to help you be sneaky.

Now, we're not suggesting for one second that you go through your partner's phone, as trust is of the utmost importance, but if you somehow just happen to see any of these apps you might have something to worry about.

One American woman told the Daily Mail how she knew something was afoot with her partner.

More people than ever are turning to tech to cover their tracks (Getty Stock)

Kerry, who lives in LA, suddenly noticed that whole message threads were disappearing from his phone, and she realised all might not be what it seems.

"He deleted everything on his phone," she revealed, but he didn't cover his tracks fully: "He forgot about his iPad on the nightstand."

She opened the iPad and found months of conversations that were missing from his phone, detailing late night hook-ups and restaurant reservations she had no clue about.

It seems more philanderers are relying on disappearing messages and hidden digital settings, known as 'affair mode' to cover up their infidelity.

Gone are the days of a separate burner phone to communicate with the other woman or man.

Kerry soon found that he had activated the 'disappearing messages' setting in his WhatsApp, meaning his messages delete themselves after a set period.

Even worse, she found he'd been having an affair with her best friend: "I found a shared Google Doc between him and my best friend from high school."

"It had everything… messages, plans, what they were going to do together, pics. I sat there scrolling... It was all planned out, right in front of me. How could I be so dumb?" she asked.

Hidden apps and self-deleting messages are some of the most commonly used methods (Getty Stock)

Secret apps

Kim Komando is a tech expert who specialises in consumer technology, digital security and internet advice.

She told the Daily Mail about the infamous 'affair mode' and highlighted the most common things to look for.

One of the most common methods is to use an inconspicuous-looking app which is actually disguised as something else.

If it looks like they have two calculators on their phone, that's a big red flag.

Kim listed examples of apps like Calculator Pro+, Calculator Vault, and Secret Calculator.

They look just like your phone's built-in calculator app on the surface, but once you enter a pin code, they can reveal a hidden stash of photos, a messaging app or a secret call log.

Sometimes the affair has been discovered thanks to phones syncing messages to other devices (Getty Stock)

Deleting messages and locked chats

The days of burning love letters are long gone, and it used to be that someone had to manually delete all traces of texts and calls.

Now, many of our messaging apps have a built in setting to wipe the trail clean automatically.

Apps like WhatsApp have a mode to delete messages after a certain time period, usually 30 days, but WhatsApp can also delete them after 24 hours or 7 days.

For iPhones, iMessage typically syncs across devices, hence Kerry was able to find them on the forgotten iPad even when her partner thought he'd wiped the iPhone clean.

She said: "He was using WhatsApp so nothing would stick."

Some people silence their notifications instead for particular people, so an alert won't flash up on their phone when the other person messages.

There's also the option to lock certain chats too, so if you do happen to discover them you can't access the contents without FaceID or a pre-set pin code.

Two calculators on their phone could be a red flag (Getty Stock Images)

You can also remove apps from the home screen without deleting them.

On an iPhone, any app can be removed from the home screen while remaining fully installed.

To take it out of view, press and hold the icon, tap Remove App, then select Remove from Home Screen.

Needless to say, you should take all of this with a pinch of salt.

Not everyone has nefarious intentions, and may just be very private, but that's not to say they're doing anything wrong.

That said, if you're worried it's best to just sit down and have an open conversation about it.