Our personal life is now wound up in the smartphone we carry along in our pockets. We capture a multitude of photos and videos, which you may want to keep private. But, it’s possible that your phone can accidentally fall prey to someone’s hands or you may just pass it over to a friend unaware of their true intentions. Well, if you are an Android user, you don’t have to worry, as there are several great apps to hide photos and videos on Android. Well, we’ve compiled a list of the 12 best photos and video hider apps on Android.

Here are the best apps that you can use to hide photos and videos on your Android device. You can check the entire list by clicking on the table of content below. You can click on the name of an app to move its location in the article.

  • Google Photos (Locked Folder)KeepSafe Photo Vault1GalleryLockMyPix Photo VaultCalculator by FishingNetHide Pictures & Videos – VaultyHide SomethingGoogle Files (Safe Folder)SgalleryHide Files – AndrognitoPhotoGuardPinboxNative Apps to Hide Photos and Videos on Android ROMs

1. Google Photos (Locked Folder)

Even though there are a ton of third party apps that you can use, and we have mentioned a lot of them right below, personally, I think Google Photos is the best way to protect your private photos and videos. The app has a useful ‘Locked Folder’ utility that you can use to safeguard any personal images that you want to hide. Once you hide photos in the Locked Folder, they are removed from the regular Google Photos library automatically, so you don’t need to do that manually. Plus, the photos can only be viewed after authenticating with a fingerprint or a pattern.

2. KeepSafe Photo Vault

If you’ve used an Android app to hide your private photos or videos, you must have heard of KeepSafe Photo Vault. It’s been around for quite a while and is still one of the better apps to safeguard your media from others. The app has bagged massive updates over the years, making it cleaner and easy-to-use by all. It lets you lock photos and videos with PIN, pattern, and fingerprint authentication options, post which it shows you a clutter-free and categorized folder grid.

You can jump into any of these folders to add and protect your private photos, videos or personal IDs. You can create new folders of your own, share them with other KeepSafe users and back up all of them to their private cloud space.

Download (Free, in-app purchases)

3. 1Gallery

1Gallery is essentially a photo gallery app for managing photos and videos. However, the prime feature of this gallery app is its ironclad vault which hides photos and videos with strong encryption. There are many apps on the Play Store that allow you to hide photos and videos, but they just use the .nomedia extension to make the media files non-scannable.

Other than that, the reason I am mentioning this app so high on this list is because of its beautiful user interface. The app is designed impeccably well and looks modern with a new design and approach to user experience.

  • Encrypted vaultHide photos with PIN, pattern, and fingerprint Simple gallery appEasy to useDark mode

Download: (Free, In-app purchases)

Among the whole lot, this was my favorite pick for guarding my photos and videos against the nosy crowd. Called LockMyPix, this aptly-named app is designed to provide the safest photo vault for protecting all your personal media files. It is backed by a military-grade AES encryption standard, and lets you hide photos with PIN or pattern.

The cheery on top being that you cannot screenshot the app when it’s unlocked, which now also adds to the privacy and security of your content. While the free version offers you a host of functionalities, you also get the option to set up fake login credentials in the Pro variant.

Key Features:

Download (Free, upgrade to Pro version for $1.99)

Calculator is a unique app in this list that is meant to act and look as a Calculator app, but at the heart of it, the app has a secure vault hidden behind. Basically, if your friends and family use your smartphone regularly then you can use the Calculator app to hide photos and videos without giving any impression that you are hiding something.

Coming to features, you have something called Intruder Selfie which allows the app to take selfies of users who try to access the secret vault. Other than that, you can set up a fake vault too in case someone forces you to open the secret vault.

Another great feature you get with this app is that you can shake the smartphone to hurriedly close the app and hide photos and videos. Overall, Calculator by FishingNet is packed with features that can enormously help you hide photos and videos from prying eyes.

Download: (Free, Offers in-app purchases)

Vaulty is yet another well-known and reliable photo/ video hiding apps, which may look a tad bit dated but performs its job perfectly fine. You can simply jump into the app, select the media files you want to hide from the gallery and password protect it from the outside world.The highlight of Vaulty is that it captures “mugshots” of intruders, who try to access your vault but fail to enter the correct password.

You will instantly know who tried to intervene in your private space, the moment you unlock the app. This feature is available for free to all users, which is definitely a plus. You also get the functionality to create multiple vaults, with separate passwords, to store different types of photos or videos in each one. You’ll, however, have to upgrade to the Premier subscription if you want to backup your files to the cloud or remove ads from the app.

Key Features: 

Download (Free, upgrade to Vaulty Premier for $9.99/month)

With close to 5 million installs in the bag, Hide Something is one of the most trouble-free apps for hiding photos and videos on your Android device. You can protect photos and videos with PIN, password, or fingerprint. The process of transferring new photos or videos to the ‘invisible’ folder is as simple as sharing a file with the Hide Something app.

You also get access to a mini collection of beautiful themes, support for a variety of media file types, an advanced image viewer and fake login mode to further protect your privacy. Hide Something is also particular about not being detected, so it doesn’t show up in the ‘recently used’ list.

Key Features:

Download (Free, get premium license for $2.99)

Unlike most of the apps mentioned on this list, Google Files is not a full-fledged vault app. However, Google recently added a convenient Safe folder to help you hide your sensitive documents, images, videos, and audio files. You’ll find the Safe folder in the Collections section of the Browse tab.

You can securely keep your sensitive files by setting a 4 digit PIN code. That said, do keep in mind that you don’t have a password reset mechanism in case you forget the PIN.  If you’re interested, do not forget to check out our dedicated guide on enabling and using safe folder in Google Files app.

  • Built in on Google FilesHide sensitive photos and videos with a PIN

Download (Free)

Sgallery is another powerful vault app that you should check out if you want to hide images and videos. The app utilizes AES encryption algorithm to encrypt the files. You also get more features including fingerprint unlock, shake to close, intruder selfie, fake password, time PIN, and custom wallpaper with the premium subscription.

Another neat feature of Sgallery is that you can disguise it as a calculator or converter. This way, others won’t know if you have hidden files. You also get a built-in web browser and notepad for safely browsing and storing texts. In addition, the app asks you to set a password recovery question in case you forget your password in the future, which is a neat addition that could come in handy.

Download: (Free, Offers in-app purchases)

10. Hide Files – Andrognito

Andrognito, which is an abbreviation for Android + Incognito, is one of the more secure privacy protection apps. It allows you to hide your photos, videos and other files behind strong layers of military-grade AES encryption standards, while storing the files in the cloud to free space on your device.

Unlocking the PRO version of the app will get you the fake vault spoofing, invisible icon, fake force close, and custom theming feature as well. But, the simplistic interface of this app had me attracted to it in the first place.

Download (Free, in-app purchases start at $0.99)

11. PhotoGuard

PhotoGuard is another app that you can use for hiding photos and videos on your Android device. It comes with AES encryption instead of TKIP, and your media files are highly protected and can’t be brute-forced to open the vault. Other than that, PhotoGuard offers cloud backup and claims that it keeps the encryption always on– be it on the device or cloud.

Further, PhotoGuard brings break-in alerts which will take pictures of the intruder and will log the time so you can find the intruder. There is also a photo viewer and video player integrated inside the vault which supports a long list of file formats. Obviously, this isn’t a very feature-rich video player, but if that’s what you’re looking for you should check out article on the best video players for Android.

  • AES-256 bit encryptionHide photos and videos with PIN, pattern, password, and fingerprintBreak-in alertsPrivate camera

Another app to hide photos and videos on your Android phone is Pinbox. With this app, you will be able to easily and safely hide your personal and private images as well as videos from prying eyes. You can simply select the photos you want to hide and save them in Pinbox. The app supports fingerprint and PIN to unlock your secure gallery. Plus, it also comes with break-in detection so you can see if anyone tries to access your hidden photos without your knowledge or consent. Pinbox encrypts hidden photos using the AES algorithm, so you can rest assured that the pictures and videos are safe.

Download: (Free, offers in-app purchases)

There are plenty of apps on the Play Store with a great range of features and functions for hiding photos and videos. However, lately, smartphone makers have started incorporating those features right into the operating system. So you don’t need to use third-party apps from the Play Store. In this section, we are bringing some of the apps and methods for popular Android skins like OneUI, MIUI, ColorOS and more. So here you go.

There are a lot of great features in OneUI, and Samsung has something called Secure Folder which is an encrypted space where you can store all your photos, videos, and files. It uses Samsung’s hardware-based Knox security platform to protect your data so the protection you get with this feature is top-notch. First of all, you need to set up Secure Folder from Settings -> Biometrics and Security -> Secure Folder. Here, set up a PIN and go through other options. After that, open the Samsung Gallery app and select your photo and move them to Secure Folder. You are done.

Xiaomi (MIUI)

On Xiaomi smartphones running MIUI, you can hide photos and videos through the native File Manager app. Just select the media files and tap on the 3-dot menu and select “Hide”. It will prompt you to set up a PIN or password and there you have it. If you want to access these media files, you can access them from the Hidden file section in File Manager after successful authentication.

Similar to Samsung, Realme has “Private Safe” that ships with ColorOS and is one of the most useful ColorOS features. You can enable it from Settings -> Security -> Private Safe. Now you can move your photos and videos or any other files to Private Safe. It will be available in a separate folder on your home screen or launcher.

On OxygenOS, you can enable “Lockbox” from the native File Manager. You can set up a PIN and move your media files including photos and videos to the Lockbox. However, keep in mind, it does not deploy encryption like Samsung devices.