Deleting a Vault App, or Moving It to a New iPhone

1. What deleting removes

On iOS, an app's files live in a space that belongs to that app. Delete the app and that space goes with it. For a vault that keeps everything on the phone, that space is where every photo is. So deleting is not "removing the lock". It is removing the photos.

Two cases behave differently, and knowing which kind of app you have decides everything.

• A vault with a server. If the app syncs to an account, the copy on the server survives deleting the app from the phone. Signing in after reinstalling brings it back. Whether it does depends on the app's design and on whether your subscription is still active. Check before you rely on it.
• A vault with no server. The phone holds the only copy. Deleting is permanent unless an export exists. This is the honest cost of the design described in offline vaults with no account. It is the same cost that makes them private.

One more thing deleting does not do: it does not touch the originals. If the photos you moved into the vault were never deleted from your library, or are still in Recently Deleted, or are in iCloud Photos, they are still there. Deleting the vault does not clean that up. Where a photo persists on an iPhone lists every place to look.

2. Before you delete: export, then test the export

Most encrypted vault apps can export their contents to a file. Do it before deleting, before moving phones, and now and then in between, because a phone can be lost without warning.

1. Export the vault to a file, using the app's own export.
2. Move the file off the phone. A computer, an external drive, or a cloud account. If the export is encrypted, cloud storage is fine, because without the password the file cannot be read.
3. Test it. Import it somewhere, on another device or back into the app, and open a photo. An untested backup is a guess.
4. Only then delete the app, if that is still the plan.

The export needs the password too. It protects you against losing the phone. It does not protect you against losing the password. That is a separate habit, covered in what happens if you forget your vault password.

3. Moving to a new iPhone

This case is easier than deleting, because Apple's transfer and backup tools carry app data. Apple's own description of what an iCloud backup contains:

With one exception Apple names: "If the app uses iCloud Drive to store data, that information is stored in iCloud instead of your iCloud Backup." A vault that keeps its data in its own space is in the backup. Restore that backup to a new phone, or use the direct phone-to-phone transfer when setting the new one up, and the vault's storage arrives with everything else.

Two habits make this reliable rather than hopeful:

• Do both. Restore the backup and keep an export. If the restore misses something, or the backup was older than you thought, the export covers it. The cost is a few minutes.
• Keep the old phone until the new one is checked. Open the vault on the new phone, view a photo, then wipe the old one. Not before.

4. What an encrypted vault needs from you on the new phone

For a vault that encrypts, what the backup carries across is scrambled data and a locked key. That is the point. A backup, an iCloud account, or a stolen phone all hold the same unreadable thing. It also means the new phone needs your password before anything else works.

Expect to type the password

Face ID unlock works by storing your vault password in the iOS Keychain, protected so that only the faces and fingerprints on that phone can fetch it. A new phone has different ones, so the shortcut does not carry over. You unlock with the password once, then turn Face ID unlock on again. If you do not know the password, this is the moment you find out. That is why it belongs in a password manager and not in your memory.

Nothing else is needed

No account to sign in to, no licence to move, no server to contact. The vault on the new phone is the vault, and the password is the key.

5. How this works in Obscura Photo Vault

Ours, and specific so you can hold us to it.

• Deleting the app deletes the vaults. There is no server and no account, so the encrypted files on the phone are the only copy. Reinstalling starts fresh. This is deliberate. It is also why exporting matters more here than for an app with a cloud copy.
• Export produces a single .obscura file, encrypted with the same AES-256-GCM and the same 600,000 rounds of PBKDF2 as the vault itself. It is safe in cloud storage. Import it on any iPhone running the app and the vault is back, with the same password.
• Device backups carry the vault across as already-encrypted files. Restoring an iCloud or computer backup to a new phone restores the vaults. They need the password to open, and Face ID unlock is set up again after the first password unlock.
• Restoring a backup is not a password recovery. It restores encrypted files, not access to them. If the password is gone, so is the content, on every copy.

The trade running through all of this is that no copy exists anywhere that we or anyone else could read. It is the same trade that makes the vault private. Are photo vault apps safe sets it against the alternatives.

6. Common questions

Does deleting a photo vault app delete the photos?

Usually yes. Photos in a vault live in the app's own storage, and deleting an app removes that storage with it. Reinstalling does not bring them back. The exception is an app that also keeps a copy on a server under your account. That copy survives deleting the app from the phone. Export before deleting, whatever the app.

Does deleting Obscura Photo Vault delete my vaults?

Yes. There is no server copy, so the encrypted vault files on the phone are the only copy, unless you have exported one. Deleting the app deletes them, and reinstalling starts fresh. Export first, and check the export opens by importing it, before you delete.

How do you move a photo vault to a new iPhone?

Two ways. A device transfer or a backup restore carries the vault across as it is. Apple states these include app data for the apps you have downloaded. For an encrypted vault, that means encrypted files that still need your password. Or export a file and import it on the new phone. Doing both costs nothing and covers a failure in either.

Will Face ID unlock my vault on the new iPhone?

Expect to type the password once. Face ID unlock stores your vault password in the iOS Keychain, tied to the faces and fingerprints on that phone. A new phone has different ones. After the first password unlock you can turn Face ID unlock on again. This is one of several reasons the password has to be saved somewhere.

Are vault photos in my iCloud backup?

Apple states that iCloud Backup includes app data for the apps you have downloaded, unless the app stores its data in iCloud Drive. So a phone-only vault's storage is in the backup. For an encrypted vault, what is in the backup is scrambled data. It can be restored to a phone, but it cannot be read without the vault password.