Disclosure: we make Photo Vault, ranked first, so read this as our opinion. Every app below says on its own App Store page (or, for Pic Safe, on its website) that you can give an album its own password. We rank them by how much else they keep off other people's servers, and say where each one beats us. Prices and ratings are from the US App Store on 8 October 2026.
Why it matters: with one lock for the whole vault, anyone you hand the unlocked app to sees everything. A password per album lets you open the holiday album for someone without opening the rest.
| # | App | Price (US) | Cloud backup | Decoy PIN | Rating (US) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Photo Vault (ours) | Free to try; yearly subscription, 7 days free | No; encrypted backup file you keep | No | 4.2 · 6 |
| 2 | Safety Photo+Video Pro | Free; cloud sync $2.99/month, $19.99/year or $59.99 once | Optional, encrypted on the device first | Yes | 4.7 · 5,176 |
| 3 | Keepsafe | $23.99/year or $9.99/month | Yes, up to 10,000 items | — | 4.7 · 384,037 |
| 4 | Private Photo Vault – Pic Safe | Plans from $6.99 to $39.99 | Yes (Cloud Vault, premium) | Yes | 4.8 · 1,016,507 |
| 5 | Secret Photo Vault – Hide Pics | Premium from $4.99 to $39.99 | Multi-device backup | — | 4.7 · 436 |
| 6 | Lock: Private Photo Vault SPV | $2.99/month, $4.99/year or $12.99 once | — | — | 4.6 · 76 |
| 7 | Keep Photo Safe Vault | $6.99 upfront, no in-app purchases | — | — | 4.6 · 42 |
A dash means the app's App Store description does not mention it, not that it is certainly missing.
1. Photo Vault: album passwords with nothing leaving the phone
Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode opens the app, and any album can have its own password on top. No account, no server, no cloud sync; the vault is excluded from iCloud backups and its files can't be read while the iPhone is locked. The icon can pass as Calculator, Notes or Weather, turning the phone face down jumps to another app, and you can export the whole vault, album passwords included, to one encrypted file. How it protects your files.
Where others beat it: an album password controls who can open the album in the app; the files are not encrypted again with it. No decoy PIN yet, and very few ratings.
2. Safety Photo+Video Pro: album passwords plus a decoy vault
Its page lists passwords for individual albums, a separate decoy vault, transfer over your local Wi-Fi through a browser, and an optional cloud backup that is encrypted on the device before upload, which support says it cannot decrypt. The best pick here if you want a decoy and an optional backup.
3. Keepsafe: album PINs with a cloud
“Album Lock” assigns individual PIN codes to albums, and its private cloud keeps up to 10,000 items, so the vault survives a lost phone. The trade-off is that your photos live on its servers.
4. Private Photo Vault – Pic Safe: the veteran
Over a million ratings. Its website lists password-protected albums, and the app has a decoy password and a premium Cloud Vault.
5 to 7. Smaller apps that do the basics
Secret Photo Vault – Hide Pics adds a unique password to each album and offers multi-device backup; its page mentions signing up for an account. Lock: Private Photo Vault SPV locks each album with its own password and Face ID, cheaply. Keep Photo Safe Vault sets a passcode per album for a one-off $6.99 with no in-app purchases.
Questions people ask
Can I put a password on a single album on iPhone?
Not with the Photos app: its Hidden and Recently Deleted albums lock with Face ID, but you can't set a password on an album you create. Vault apps such as Photo Vault (we make it), Safety Photo+Video Pro, Keepsafe and Pic Safe let you give each album its own password or PIN.
Is an album password the same as encryption?
Not necessarily. In Photo Vault the album password controls who can open the album inside the app; the files themselves are protected by iOS Data Protection like the rest of the vault. Check each app's own security page if that difference matters to you.
Which album-password vault works without an account or cloud?
Photo Vault has no account, server or cloud sync. Keep Photo Safe Vault and Lock: Private Photo Vault SPV don't mention a cloud on their App Store pages. Keepsafe and Pic Safe offer cloud storage.