How to make a secret photo album on iPhone

A secret photo album needs two properties: people should not find it, and if they do find it, they should not be able to open it. iOS handles the first property reasonably well and the second only partly. Here is how to build the best version with what is built in, and where it runs out.

The built-in secret album: Hidden

The Hidden album is the Photos app’s only private album. Anything you hide moves into it and out of your Library grid, your other albums and most suggestions.

Step 1: move photos into Hidden

1. In Photos, tap Select and choose the photos and videos you want.
2. Tap the More (•••) button and choose Hide.

Step 2: make the album disappear

Open Settings › Apps › Photos (Settings › Photos before iOS 18) and turn off Show Hidden Album. The Hidden album vanishes from the Photos app. There is no empty slot, no greyed-out entry, nothing to tap.

Step 3: keep it locked

On the same screen, make sure Use Face ID (or Use Touch ID / Use Passcode) is on. That way, even after you turn Show Hidden Album back on to look at your photos, the album asks for authentication.

To view your secret album later, switch Show Hidden Album on, open Utilities › Hidden in Photos (iOS 18 and later), authenticate, and switch it off again when you are done.

Tricks that only look secret

Several common tips feel private but do not keep anything out of view.

Renaming an album. You can create an album called “Receipts” or “Work” and fill it with personal photos. But an album is just a list pointing at photos that still live in the main library. Every photo in that album is also in the Library grid, in Memories and in search results.

Using a shared album as a private one. A shared album with no one else invited still appears in the shared albums section of Photos on every device signed in to your Apple Account, and it is unlocked.

Putting photos in the Files app. You can save images to On My iPhone or iCloud Drive in Files, which takes them out of Photos. But Files has no folder locks, and anyone who opens the app can browse those folders. The guide on password protecting a folder on iPhone covers what you can do there.

Relying on Recently Deleted. Deleted photos are locked like Hidden ones, but they are permanently removed after about 30 days. It is not storage.

What the Hidden album cannot do

Even done carefully, the Hidden album has gaps that matter for anything sensitive:

• It opens with your device passcode. Face ID is the first prompt, but anyone who knows your passcode can use the fallback.
• The setting is discoverable. Someone familiar with iOS can switch Show Hidden Album back on in seconds.
• It syncs. With iCloud Photos, the same Hidden album appears on your iPad and Mac.
• There is only one. You cannot have a separate secret album for, say, medical records and personal photos with different access.

The page is the iPhone Hidden album private? goes into each point.

A stronger secret album: a vault

A vault app keeps its own albums, separate from the Photos library, so nothing inside shows up in Library, Memories, Search or widgets. Good vaults encrypt that storage with a key derived from a secret you choose, independent of your phone’s passcode.

Some vaults go a step further and address the “if they find it” problem. A decoy vault is a second vault with harmless contents that you can open if pressured, while the real one stays hidden. That only works if the app gives no hint that other vaults exist. What is a decoy vault? and plausible deniability explained cover the idea and its limits.

One thing no vault can fully hide is its own existence. The app icon is on your Home Screen. In iOS 18 and later you can touch and hold most third-party app icons, choose Require Face ID, then hide the app, which moves it to a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library. That is an iOS feature, and like the Hidden album, the Hidden apps folder opens with your device passcode.

Built-in vs vault: a quick comparison

	Hidden album	Renamed album	Files folder	Vault app
Out of Library view	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Locked	Face ID / passcode	No	No	App’s own secret
Can be removed from view	Yes	No	No	App can be hidden (iOS 18+)
Multiple separate albums	No	Yes	Yes	Usually
Synced to iCloud	With iCloud Photos	With iCloud Photos	If in iCloud Drive	Depends on the app

Where Velcrypt fits

Velcrypt approaches the secret album from the “nobody can open it” side. Inside a vault you can create as many albums as you like and move photos and videos between them, all encrypted on the device with AES-256-GCM.

The part that is unusual is how vaults work. Each pattern you draw on the 5×5 grid is its own vault, and the app keeps no list of them. A pattern Velcrypt has never seen simply opens a new, empty vault, with no error message. That means there is nothing in the app that reveals how many hidden vaults you have, and you can keep a harmless one as a decoy.

The honest limits: the Velcrypt icon itself is visible unless you use iOS’s own app hiding, and nothing protects a vault if someone sees you draw the pattern or takes the phone while the vault is open. Since vault data is not backed up, a forgotten pattern means a lost album.