Private Photo Vault - Pic Safe

• Hide Private Photos — $6.99

Last verified 30 Aug 2026

4.8 1013133 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5App no longer functioning on iPhone 11 Pro iOS 13.5 – constant crashing upon opening

   In the last update or the second to last update I am no longer able to open my application. I am on an iPhone 11 Pro running iOS 13.5. I’ve been a long time user and premium subscriber of your application, and I’ve never had issues with compatibility in the past. In most cases when apps are updated and require a newer version of iOS, the software developer will disable updates for devices that don’t need the specified iOS version. I was not given a warning, and I was dumbfounded went out of nowhere my app is unable to open. I’m not sure why this is happening, but if I am no longer able to use this application, I’m going to have to cancel my premium subscription. I’m sure there are other users of your application on lower iOS devices that are also running into this issue. My biggest problem is that I am unable to access my pictures now because I’m unable to open the application. If you could provide me instructions on how to retrieve my photos and videos that are currently locked inside of the application, I would really appreciate it. I’m hoping that this issue is resolved, but in the meantime I would hope you are able to help me retrieve my images and videos.

   Paulyv1992 · 30 Aug 2026

2. 4/5Great app but has a few issues. iCloud Storage

   Everything about the app’s functionality and features are great! However, there are two big issues I have. 1.) I subscribed to the premium version to have to utilize the cloud storage. The description of the iCloud storage option is inaccurate. It states that you can can save space on your your device by synchronizing and uploading all the photos to the cloud so that when you preview the content on your device, it will download it from the cloud without using up the storage on your device. Which in sense, should be similar to IOS. However, when I preview the photos in the app. It downloads the photo to my device and does not remove it after previewing. Ultimately it does not save any space at all. If I wanted to remove the data from my device, I would have to wipe everything off by reinstalling the app. After doing that, I log in, and it will synchronize with the cloud until I open up the photo which then automatically downloads the photo to the device. 2.) I’m not sure if it was because of the update but when I reinstalled the app, I have a problem where I couldn’t connect to the server when I was logging back into my account. I had to remove my 1 year subscription and resubscribe to finally log back in. But doing so prompted a message saying that I would have to pay again after my 1 week free trial. My subscription didn’t expire until August 2022. Which means I did not use the whole year of the subscription.

   DespicableBeast · 30 Aug 2026

3. 4/5Great product, cumbersome UX

   Ive been using this app (pro version) for many years now and its never lost a pic. The photo editor is amazing! Sometimes ill even import a photo just to edit it and then export it because the editor is so much more capable than the stock iOS photo editor. My only complaint is that it requires way too many button clicks to do most things. For example, to import a photo from you library it requires nine button clicks! The worst it the three dialogs that must be dismissed after every import. Two of them could easily be removed. The experienced user doesn’t need to read those warnings every single time. Editing a photo also requires way too many clicks. Taking a photo within the app is a great feature but each photo requires four clicks! It should be one. The new editor is great but it needs to be streamlined. The app is stable and well coded but it smells like the software developer was also the UX Designer. If thats the case it could really use a dedicated designer. Developers think from the perspective of the technology (for example the photo library they chose). Designers think from the perspective of the user. It's a huge difference and it shows. One missing feature is nested directories. Even two levels would be enough. Another missing feature is multiple (more than two) alternate vaults. There's no reason why there should be only two. It's as if they only thought of it as a plausible deniability mechanism rather than a feature in itself. You could have one gesture for nature pics, another for naughty pics, another for cars, etc. There is no reason for only two.

   Clark Battle · 30 Aug 2026

4. 2/5Would NOT recommend

   I have used this app for many years as a “pro” user and I guess that makes me qualified to finally review it. It used to work more or less well. Sure, there were quite a few extremely annoying glitxhes such as the propensity of the app to re-areange your photos according to nobody-knows-what criteria. Then the fact that if you had, say, two phones or a phone and an ipad, you woule end with two different versions of your library. And then, there was a super-cumbersome way of downloading anything on another device of yours. But it kind of worked. Until it didn’t. It all went downhill with the introduction of a subscription model, offering the “solution” (finally) to the multi-device sync problem. More specifically, cloud syncing. They went all cure saying how “nobody has your password etc”. But what happened is that the initial sync to cloud simply ERASED about a half of the library - something to do with improper domain naming i.e. a programming error. And that’s it. There is no way to get the images back even after downgrading. And as pointed out by many users, the customer service simply does not care and does not respond. All together, what is the point of an app that allows you to remove your sensitive images from your photo stream to a supposedly secure library - that then destroys them? And the fact that they don’t even care to answer tells you all you need to know. Stay away, and most definitely, don’t waste your hard earned 40 bucks on this hot mess of an app.

   latetalks · 30 Aug 2026

5. 5/5Excellent app

   This app allows you to save photos and videos to this app separately from your phone’s main photo album, simple enough. Photos and videos can be transferred easily, and will stay there no matter what, unless you delete them or transfer them back to the phone’s main photo album. What’s nice is that not only the app includes a passcode, but also includes Face ID. The app has many other features of course, like it’s own browser, which works as you’d expect with any other browser. The free version is very nice and usable, but unfortunately includes ads. Understandable, but still frustrating to look at. The subscription really does open a lot of doors for $7 a month. Right now they have a discount, but the main price is $7. Which is reasonable because of the cloud vault, which I’m not sure is being spied on, but I mean it’s a cloud vault, free space! There are many features that it adds to the app, like no ads, wireless photo transfer, and a decoy passcode. :o I am just in shock that they added a decoy passcode as a feature. (Decoy passcode is a feature where you can have a main passcode to open up the the photos that you stored, but it’s possible to enter another passcode which opens up another set of photos. In there you can put a different set of photos that are not the ones Locked up in the main passcode.) At the time of writing this, the “app disguise” feature is not available yet, but I can’t wait it will so my soon to be fiancé won’t look around the App Library wondering what kind of photos I’m hiding in this app. I use it for many rings that I could propose to her. Wish me luck :) Overall. This is an outstanding app, and I guarantee you that it might be, if not I know it will be worth it.

   James ',:) · 30 Aug 2026

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