Is Obscura Photo Vault Safe?

1. Who it keeps your photos from

We make the app, so read this page with that in mind. We have tried to write it so that you do not need to trust us. Each claim links to something you can read or test.

"Safe" only means something once you say who from. Here is the plain version, person by person.

The first four rows are what the app is built for. The fifth depends on a second vault, and section 5 covers where it stops. The last two happen while the vault is open, so encryption on its own does little against them. Most vault apps share these limits, and our guide to whether vault apps are safe explains why.

2. What happens to a photo inside the app

This describes version 1.14 and later. The full detail is in our security paper.

It is locked before it is saved

When you add a photo, the app encrypts it in memory. Only the locked version is written to the phone. The small preview images are locked too, and so is the list of folders, names and tags. Videos are the one case where iOS briefly holds a readable copy in a temporary file while the video comes in. The app deletes it as soon as the locked copy is written.

Your password unlocks a key, and the key locks the photos

Each vault has its own master key. It is a long random number, made once, when you create the vault. Your password does not lock your photos directly. It unlocks that master key.

Turning your password into a key is slow on purpose. It takes about a second on an iPhone, because the app repeats one step 600,000 times. A second is nothing to you. To someone trying millions of guesses, it adds up to a very long time. Our plain guide to the encryption terms explains the numbers.

Every file has a tamper seal

Each locked file carries a seal. If even one byte is changed, the file refuses to open. It is built not to show you something that was quietly altered.

Videos play without a readable copy on the phone

When you play a video, the app unlocks only the part being shown, in memory. No readable copy of the video is written to the phone's storage.

When the vault locks, the key is wiped

Locking the vault wipes the master key from memory. To see anything again, you need the password or Face ID.

Where your photos can go

Only three places: the phone, your iPhone backup, and any export file you make yourself. In the backup and the export, the files are still locked. The app sends nothing to us, because there is nowhere to send it.

3. Why you do not have to take our word for it

Most vault apps say they keep your photos safe. Few say how. In August 2026 we read the App Store listings of the five most-rated vault apps. None of them named its encryption method and settings. One said "military-grade". You can see the quotes in our comparison of photo vault apps.

A phrase like that asks you to trust it. We have tried to give you more than a phrase, in three steps. Each one asks you to trust us a little less.

Step 1: a written design, with its limits

The security paper describes how the app locks your photos. It also has a whole section on what the app does not protect against. A written claim lets you hold us to something. But it is still only words.

Step 2: the code itself

The code that does the locking is public. It is called ObscuraCrypto, and anyone can read it on GitHub. It covers how your password becomes a key, and how every photo, video, preview, protected folder and backup file is locked.

It uses only Apple's own building blocks for the hard parts, and no code from other companies. It comes with tests. Some of those tests open sample files that the app itself wrote. That shows the public code reads what the app writes.

Step 3: your own phone

This is the step that does not rely on us at all. The project includes a step-by-step guide for checking the files on your own iPhone. You need a Mac and about twenty minutes. You make a backup of the phone on the Mac, copy the vault files out of it, and run a few checks:

• The files are not readable photos. They do not start the way a photo or video file does, and they do not shrink when compressed, as locked data does not.
• Only your password opens your vault. It opens exactly one vault file. Every other file gives the same answer: wrong password.
• A password change rewrites nothing. Change your password, check again, and every photo file is exactly the same as before. Only the lock on the master key changed.
• Tampering is caught. Change one byte of a file, and it refuses to open.

None of this needs any help from us. In plain terms, you are checking what we say about the app against the files on your own phone.

If the app ever goes away

The same public project includes a small tool for a Mac. It can open an Obscura backup file with your password and write your photos and videos out as normal files. So a backup file you keep does not depend on the app, or on us. Photos in a folder with its own password are the exception, because their second key lives inside the app.

4. What the public code does not prove

Publishing the code is a big step, but it has limits. These are the ones that matter.

• That the app on your phone was built from it. Apple signs and encrypts every App Store app again before it reaches you. So nobody outside Apple can prove which code a download came from. What the checks above prove is that your files match the public code exactly. That could not happen by accident.
• The rest of the app. The screens, the database, how the ten vault slots work, and wiping keys from memory are not in the public code. The security paper describes them, but you cannot read that code.
• That an expert has reviewed it. No outside security firm has audited the app or the code. Public code makes a review possible. It does not mean one has happened.

5. The risks that remain, and how likely each is

These are listed from most likely to least likely. Each one says how likely it is and how bad it would be.

• Forgetting your password
• The originals left behind in Photos
• A weak password, and someone with a copy of your data
• Someone sees the screen while the vault is open
• Face ID used by someone who is with you
• Separate Vaults, and where they stop
• A small, rare risk in very large video libraries
• Harmful software on the phone
• The app can be seen on your phone

Forgetting your password

How likely: the most likely way to lose your photos, far more likely than any attack. How bad: permanent. Nobody can reset it, including us.

This is the same fact as "nobody else can open it", seen from the other side. Keep the password in a password manager, and keep an export file somewhere safe. Our guide on forgetting a vault password covers both.

The originals left behind in Photos

How likely: very common. How bad: the photo stays readable by anyone with your phone passcode.

Adding a photo to the vault copies it. The original stays in your library until you delete it. Then it sits in Recently Deleted for 30 days, and in iCloud Photos until the deletion catches up. A vault app cannot clear all of these places on its own, so deleting the originals is up to you. Our guide to where photos stay on an iPhone lists every place.

A weak password, and someone with a copy of your data

How likely: low. They need a copy of your phone's data, such as a backup on a computer, plus time and effort. How bad: they could open that vault.

With a copy, someone can try passwords on a computer as fast as it will go. The slow key step makes each guess cost more, but it cannot save a weak password. The public project gives these rough times for one powerful graphics card:

These are examples only, so do not use them. A password printed on a web page is one of the first an attacker tries. "Random" matters here: a name with a year, or a line from a song, is a pattern, even when it is long. Let a password manager pick the words or characters for you.

Use four or more random words. On the phone itself, guessing is slow, but the app's extra waits only begin after 100 wrong passwords in a row. That count also resets when the app restarts. We say so in the security paper. The real brake is the second each guess takes.

Someone sees the screen while the vault is open

How likely: depends on your life. How bad: they see what is on screen.

Encryption only protects locked files. The app hides its contents in the app switcher. By default it locks itself after five minutes of no use. You can set it to lock right away, or turn auto-lock off, in which case it stays open until you lock it.

Face ID used by someone who is with you

How likely: low. It needs someone with you and your phone. How bad: the vault opens.

A face is easier to get hold of than a password. If someone close to you is the worry, turn off Face ID for the vault and use the password only.

Separate Vaults, and where they stop

How likely: low. The known gaps need direct access to your phone's storage, or someone who knows the app well. How bad: someone could tell that you use more than one vault.

The everyday case works well. Someone asks to see your photos, and you open a second vault that holds photos you do not mind showing. It is a real vault, not a fake one. The app has no list of vaults and no count, and nothing on screen hints that another vault exists.

The files on the phone are built to match. The app always keeps ten vault files, used or not, and they are made the same way. Unlocking checks every one of them, so the time it takes does not show which vault opened. A second vault needs the Pro version of the app.

The known gaps are outside the app: the total number of photo files, an eleventh vault, and iCloud Keychain. Someone who knows the app allows more than one vault may also simply keep asking. Our guide to Separate Vaults explains each one.

A small, rare risk in very large video libraries

How likely: very unlikely. About 1 in 35,000 with 500 large videos in one vault, and about 1 in 90 with 10,000. How bad: limited.

Each large video gets a short random tag that keeps it apart from the others. Two videos could, rarely, get the same tag. Someone with both files could then learn a little about how the two relate. They still could not open the vault or any other file. A future version of the file format will remove this.

Harmful software on the phone

How likely: rare for most people. Apple calls attacks that break into an up-to-date iPhone "extremely rare and highly sophisticated". How bad: severe, if it happens while you use the vault.

Ordinary apps cannot reach the vault. iOS keeps each app's files and memory apart, so another app on your phone cannot read the vault files or look inside the app while it runs. The risk is software that breaks that wall. That means a flaw in iOS itself, a jailbroken phone, or a device profile installed by someone you do not trust.

What such software could reach depends on what the vault is doing:

• While the vault is locked: only locked files. That is the same as someone with a copy of your data, and a strong password protects you the same way.
• While the vault is open: the master key is in the app's memory, and so are the photos on screen. Software that has broken into the phone could copy them.
• While you unlock it: it could watch the screen, or catch the password as you type it.

So this kind of attack does not need to break the encryption. It waits for you to open the vault. How long the vault stays open depends on your auto-lock setting. By default it locks after five minutes of no use, and you can make that shorter. If you turn auto-lock off, the vault and its key stay open until you lock it yourself.

When the vault locks, the app wipes the key from memory. It keeps no readable copy of your photos in storage once they are added, so a locked vault leaves nothing readable behind.

What you can do: keep iOS up to date, do not jailbreak your phone, and do not install profiles from people you do not trust. Keep auto-lock on, and set it short. If you think someone is targeting you in particular, Apple's Lockdown Mode is built for that.

The app can be seen on your phone

How likely: certain. How bad: mild for most people.

The app is on your home screen and in your App Store purchases. Encryption hides what is in the vault. It does not hide that the vault exists.

6. What we can and cannot do

The app has no account and no server. That shapes what we can do for you, in both directions.

• We cannot see your photos. They never reach us.
• We cannot reset your password or get a vault back for you.
• We cannot lose your photos in a breach. We hold nothing of yours to lose.
• We do not collect data about you. The App Store privacy label says Data Not Collected. That label is our own answer, and Apple does not check it. You can test it: the app works fully in Airplane Mode.

If iCloud Backup is on, your vault is part of it, as locked files. Apple cannot read them without your password. Our guide to moving or deleting a vault app covers backups and new phones.

7. Who it suits, and who it does not

It suits you if you want photos that stay unreadable to someone with your phone or passcode, and you will keep your password safe. It also suits you if you want to check the claims, not just read them.

Look elsewhere if you need someone to reset a forgotten password, or you want your photos to sync between devices through a cloud account. A cloud vault is a different trade. Our guide to vault app safety sets out what it gains and what it costs.

8. Common questions

Is Obscura Photo Vault safe?

For what it is built to do, yes, and you can check it. Your photos are locked on your phone with a key made from a password only you know. There is no account and no server. The code that does the locking is public. It does not protect you from everything. The biggest real risk is forgetting your password, because nobody can reset it.

Can the developer of Obscura Photo Vault see my photos?

No. The app has no server and no account, so your photos never reach us. We do not hold your password or any key. That is also why we cannot reset a forgotten password or get a vault back for you.

Is Obscura Photo Vault open source?

The encryption is. The code that turns your password into a key and locks your photos, videos, folders and backups is published on GitHub as ObscuraCrypto. The rest of the app, such as its screens and its database, is not.

Has Obscura Photo Vault been independently audited?

No. No outside security firm has reviewed the app or its encryption code. The code is public so that anyone can, and the security paper sets out the design in detail. That makes a review possible. It does not mean one has happened.

Can I get my photos back without the app?

Yes, from a backup file. The public ObscuraCrypto project includes a small tool for a Mac that opens an Obscura backup file with your password and writes the photos and videos out as normal files. Photos in a folder with its own password are the exception. Their second key lives inside the app.

Is Obscura Photo Vault the same as the Obscura camera app?

No. Obscura Photo Vault is an encrypted photo vault made by Orlio Inc. Obscura, the manual camera app, is a different app by a different developer. This page is only about the photo vault.