How would I do it from a view level?

If user = admin
do this
else do this

if (elgg_is_admin_logged_in()) {
    do this
}
else {
    do this
}

Also, How to check a user is admin or not

How would you limit admin access to only the /admin pages?

Thanks but I don't think that will work either because it will grab people that are also logged_in_users. Those same people are my friends. I don't want friends. I want everyone but friends.

Thanks but I don't think that will work either because it will grab people that are also logged_in_users. Those same people are my friends. I don't want friends. I want everyone but friends.

I don't know what that means. Who are the logged_in_users? Your code runs in a single session, so there is only one logged in user. That user has friends and everyone who is not a friend. It's binary, so using NOT IN does what I think you want to get done. If you also need to include current user, just do it with additional query.

rv.subject_guid != $user->guid AND rv.subject_guid NOT IN (SELECT ...)

I feel foolish. You're right! The above did the trick! Thank you again!

I agree with you: https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/issues/6767

Thanks for the reply. That thread is kind of frustrating. I believe the annotation's access_id should be inherited from the content. What if the user decided to edit the content's access_id? The "like" annotation access should change with it. That's just my opinion.

So where can I add elgg_set_ignore_access(TRUE);
The all like annotations?

Keeping access in sync wouldn't be desirable for all annotations, but for likes we could do a sync similar to comments. That doesn't solve magic access level problem however.