Apple's Photos app has a Hidden album, and since iOS 16 it is locked behind Face ID or Touch ID by default. For a lot of people that sounds like enough. Whether it is depends on who you are trying to keep out.
What the Hidden album does well
It keeps photos out of your main library view, out of Memories and out of widgets. If you hand your unlocked phone to a friend to show them holiday pictures, they will not swipe into something private. That is a real benefit, and it costs nothing.
Where it stops
Your passcode opens it
When Face ID fails, iOS falls back to the device passcode. Anyone who knows your six digits, such as a partner, a family member or someone who watched you type it, can open the Hidden album. There is no separate secret.
It is the same library
Hidden photos are stored with the rest of your photo library and sync through iCloud Photos to your iPad, your Mac and iCloud.com. They are protected by the same things that protect every other photo, no more.
Everyone knows where to look
The album is in the same place on every iPhone. You can hide the album from the list in Settings, but that switch is also in the same place on every iPhone.
Deleted is not deleted
Remove a hidden photo and it moves to Recently Deleted for 30 days, also unlocked by your passcode.
What a real vault changes
An encrypted vault differs in one essential way: the secret that opens it is not your phone's passcode, and the files are encrypted with a key derived from that secret. In VaultBe, that secret is a pattern. Knowing the phone passcode gets someone to the lock screen of the app and no further.
On top of that sit features that the Photos app has no reason to offer: several vaults behind different patterns, a duress pattern, and a camera that never writes to your library in the first place.
So which should you use?
- Hidden album: fine for keeping surprises and clutter out of sight of people you trust.
- Encrypted vault: for anything that would matter if someone who knows your passcode went looking.
If you decide to move things across, follow our guide to removing the originals, including the Recently Deleted step that most people forget.