3 Ways to Hide Photos on iPhone [ Protected with a Passcode]

Updated Nov 28,2018 | by Cody

If you are like me, you save a lot of amazing photos on their iPhone. Most of them, you like to share with others through email, social media, message, etc. Surely, there are some private precious photos, which you like to keep to yourself. In that case, you can hide photos on iPhone using one of the methods here.

Do you really need to download a dedicated app for hiding images on your iOS device? Not really. There are a few built-in tricks that I am about to show you will keep certain pictures away from others who have access to your phone.

Actually, your iPhone has a built-in feature for hiding photos. On iOS 11 or iOS 12, you can add any photos to the Hidden album. Then these photos will be removed from All Photos. You can refer the steps below to hide photos in a private photo album.

Step 1. Launch the Photos app on your iPhone.

Step 2. Select one of more photos that you want to hide.

Step 3. Tap the Share icon in the lower left corner.

Step 4. From Share Sheet, tap Hide. You may need to scroll right to see the Hide option.

If you ever want to view these hidden photos, just tap on Albums at the bottom and select the Hidden album. It is very convenient, but this also means anyone who can get access to your phone can see these hidden private photos when you unlock your device in the first place.

If you want to hide images on your iPhone at a deeper level, just see the next method. If you have iOS 10 or older version, then check the third method.

If you have updated to iOS 12, then probably heard of Siri Shortcuts. It is very a very powerful feature that allows you to automate many complicated tasks. I have made a shortcut that base64 encode images you choose and make them as archive files. Therefore, even if someone finds these files on your iPhone, all they see is a few lines of characters.

Sounds good? You can refer the steps below to see how it works.

Step 1. Download the Shortcuts app from AppStore if you haven’t. Then get this shortcut Hide Photos . You need to open this link in Safari.

Step 2. You open Shortcuts app and run this Hide Photos shortcut, or you can select a few photos to run this shortcut from Share Sheet.

Step 3. When you run this shortcut, it will first ask you if you want to Hide Photos or Unhide photos. Then it will prompt you to select photos that you want to hide.

Step 4. If you have chosen a few photos to hide, then this shortcuts will ask your permission to delete the selected photos from Photo Album.

When you have successfully hidden some photos, you can run this Siri shortcut to View or Unhide photos and restore them back to Camera Roll if needed. If you want to hide private photos on iPhone and protect them with a passcode, try the next method.

As you probably know that you can lock a note with a passcode. Similarly, you can use the same way to lock a photo with a passcode. You just need to add the photos that you want to hide to a note.

Step 1. On Photos app, select a few images that you want to hide and tap on the Share button.

Step 2. From Share Sheet, select Add to Note and tap Save. Then you can delete these selected photos.

Step 3. Open the note that you just created in Notes App. Tap Share button again.

Step 4. From Share Sheet, select Lock Note and then enter your password to lock this note, namely the photos that you want to hide.

If you need to change your passcode, go to Settings > Notes > Password. In this way, all your selected photos are protected with a passcode on your iPhone.

Thses 3 methods all can help you hide photos on iPhone. If you are not satisfied with any of this methods, there are a few good apps from AppStore that you can use to hide or lock your private photos on iOS device.

For free app to hide photos, you can use Private Photo Vault or Secret Photo Vault. If you need more advanced app for hiding personal photos, Secret Calculator Pro is recommended, it is disguised as a calculator app, so no one will suspect this.

All these methods will delete photos on your iPhone. It is recommended to backup all your photos to computer in case of data loss. 

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