The Hidden Album vs a Photo Vault App

1. Side by side

The vault column describes a vault that encrypts files on the phone with a key made from its own password. Not every app called a vault does that. Section 3 covers the difference.

2. What the Hidden album does well

Apple states that hidden photos "don't appear anywhere else in Photos, like the Library, other albums, or even the Photos widget", and that since iOS 16 the album "is locked by default and requires authentication to unlock". Turn off Show Hidden Album in Settings and the album itself disappears from view.

That solves the problem most people actually have: a photo appearing while someone else is holding the phone, or in a widget, or in a Memory at a bad moment. It is free, it is two taps, and there is nothing to forget. If that is your whole problem, use it and stop reading.

Its limit is one fact. The lock opens with your phone passcode, because the album is part of a library the passcode already unlocks. Our guide to the Hidden album walks through everything it does and does not cover, including Recently Deleted, backups and shared albums.

3. What a vault app adds, if it encrypts

A photo vault app can do one thing the Hidden album cannot: put a password in front of your photos that is not your phone passcode. If the app encrypts the files with a key made from that password, then what is stored is scrambled data. Someone holding the unlocked phone, or a copy of its storage, has nothing they can read without the vault password.

That "if" matters. The word vault is used for two designs that look the same from the outside: an icon, a PIN pad and a grid.

• Apps that encrypt the file. Storage holds scrambled data. Without the key there is nothing to read.
• Apps that only lock the screen. Ordinary files sit in ordinary app storage, and a PIN screen sits in front of the app. The lock belongs to the app, not to the data.

The second kind adds a separate password without adding a separate key. For the risks in the table, that is not much more than the Hidden album already gives you. The way to tell them apart is whether the developer names the encryption method, and how the password becomes a key, in writing. What those terms mean and which apps publish them are separate guides.

4. What a vault app costs

A fair comparison lists these, because the Hidden album has none of them.

• No reset. An encrypted vault that cannot recover your password is the same design as one that nobody else can open. Forget the password and the contents are gone. What that means in practice is worth reading before you move anything.
• A second place to manage. Photos in a vault are outside Photos. No shared albums, no Memories, no editing in the Photos app, and moving things in and out is manual.
• The originals. Copying a photo into a vault does not remove it from your library, or from Recently Deleted for thirty days after you delete it, or from iCloud until the deletion catches up. The vault is only as private as the clean-up afterwards.
• A backup habit. The Hidden album is backed up with everything else. A vault on your phone is yours to export, or it is lost with the phone.
• The app is visible. A vault icon on a home screen says there is something in it. A disguise changes the icon, not the record of what is installed.

5. Decide by who you are hiding from

The last row is there on purpose. Encryption of stored files does not help against a phone that is compromised while the vault is open, or a password that someone else knows. Every vault app, including ours, stops there. A developer who says so in writing is telling you something useful about the rest of their claims.

6. Using both

Most people who use a vault also use the Hidden album, for different photos. The vault holds the few things that would matter if the phone were unlocked in someone else's hands. The Hidden album holds the larger set that just should not pop up in a widget. Both, plus Show Hidden Album turned off and Recently Deleted emptied after a move, is the complete version of hiding photos on an iPhone. The steps for every part of it are in how to hide photos on iPhone.

7. Common questions

Is the iPhone Hidden album safe enough?

For the common case, yes. It keeps a photo out of the library, the widget, Memories and search inside Photos. Since iOS 16 it needs Face ID or Touch ID to open. But it opens with your phone passcode too, and the photos in it still sync to iCloud. So it is not enough if the person you are hiding from knows your passcode or can sign in to your Apple Account.

Do I need a vault app if I already use the Hidden album?

Only if the risk includes someone with your passcode, someone with your Apple Account, or a copy of the phone's storage. Those are the cases where a separate password over encrypted files changes the outcome. If the risk is a glance or a scroll, the Hidden album already covers it.

Is hiding a photo the same as encrypting it?

No. Apple does not describe the Hidden album as encrypting anything. Photos on the phone are protected by the phone's own encryption whether hidden or not. Hiding changes which album a photo is in and puts a lock screen in front of it. Encrypting, in the vault sense, means the file cannot be read without a key made from a password that is not your phone passcode.

Which should I use for photos I really do not want seen?

An encrypted vault, if the risk includes anyone who knows your phone passcode or can sign in to your Apple Account. Those are the two things the Hidden album cannot stop. Move the photos in, then delete the originals from your library and empty Recently Deleted. Otherwise the originals stay reachable behind a lock your passcode opens.

What happens to photos I move to a vault?

They are copied into the app's storage and, in an encrypted vault, encrypted there. The original stays in your library until you delete it. After that it sits in Recently Deleted for thirty days, still syncing, unless you empty that album. Moving a photo to a vault is not finished until the original is gone from those places too.