Get the app

Scenarios

Your date scrolled too far in your camera roll: what to do

Someone swiped past the photo you meant to show and into private ones. Send one photo, freeze the screen with Guided Access, and move private photos out of Photos.

You cannot undo what your date saw, and replaying it will not help. What you can change is the next time. Send the photo instead of handing over the phone, or freeze the screen on that one photo.

Send the photo

Open the photo in Photos, tap the Share button, and choose AirDrop, Messages or Mail. The other person gets that photo and nothing else. No swipe can reach the rest of your library.

Or hold the phone and lock the screen

Guided Access limits the iPhone to one app. Turn it on first in Settings, Accessibility, Guided Access.

  1. Open the photo.
  2. Triple-click the side button.
  3. Tap Session Settings and turn off Touch.
  4. Tap Start.

Now the screen ignores swipes. The full steps are in how to show one photo without letting anyone swipe.

What Apple already keeps behind a lock

The Hidden and Recently Deleted collections are locked by default. Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode opens them, and a swipe does not. You can turn that lock off in Settings, Apps, Photos. If you ever did, turn it back on. Any photo that is not hidden is one swipe away, whatever the setting.

Take the private photos out of Photos

Hidden still lives inside Photos, and your passcode opens it. We think private photos belong in a separate place. A vault keeps them outside the Photos app, so a swipe in Photos does not reach them.

  1. Import the private photos from Photos into Vault9.
  2. Open them in Vault9 to check that they are there.
  3. Delete the originals in Photos. Vault9 never does this for you.
  4. In Photos, tap Collections, then Recently Deleted under Utilities. Tap View Album, unlock, tap Select, choose the photos, and delete them.

Do step 4. Photos keeps a deleted photo for 30 days, so the photo is still in your library until then. Copies you sent to someone, or saved in a chat, stay where they are.

Two limits apply. Vault9 does not protect a vault that is open on an unlocked phone, so lock the app before you pass the phone. The app locks when it goes to the background, when you lock it, or after the time you set. And the Vault9 icon is visible on your Home Screen. We offer no disguised icon, so a person who scrolls through your apps can see it.

Sources

← All scenarios

Get Vault9

Point your iPhone camera at the code. The App Store opens.

Download on the App Store

No account. No ads.