How to hide photos on iPhone

iPhones come with so many new features these days, it can be hard to keep track — and sometimes to even know they exist. We hear ya. But some of those features can be extremely useful.

For instance, did you know you can hide photos on your iPhone? You can even create hidden photo albums on an iPhone, too. The “Hide” feature on your iPhone is definitely one you should be using, and not just because it’s there. We’re big fans of privacy here at Mashable, and we can think of multiple reasons (some obvious, some less so) why someone might want to hide their iPhone photos. Let’s walk you through them, shall we?

Why would anyone want to hide iPhone photos?

We’ll begin with the most obvious reason: Nudes. Yours? Someone else’s? There’s nothing wrong with that at all. A lot of us take them! But do you really feel comfortable knowing you’re an accidental iPhone misplacement away from a total stranger having access to your intimate pics?

I lose my iPhone probably twice a day, and I barely ever leave home. On the chance that you lose your phone, you want to make it as difficult as possible for people to find those pics.

Maybe you’re not worried about losing your phone, or about strangers looking at your photos. Maybe you’re more concerned about showing your friends some great photos you just took and accidentally scrolling by something private. Or perhaps you don’t want certain pics appearing in your Home Screen photo widget. I mean, it happens.

There are a bunch of apps you can use to hide nudes and other ways to safely store sensitive images on your phone, but you don’t necessarily have to worry about those if you use your iPhone’s “Hide Photo” feature.

Nudes may not be the only photos on your iPhone you want to hide. Maybe you don’t take them at all, and that’s fine, but consider the various other possibilities. For holidays, birthdays, or any special gift-giving occasion, you may have taken a photo of something you want to give to somebody else. And if you’re hanging out with that person, you don’t want them to accidentally find their present on your phone when it was supposed to be a secret! Hiding photos is a sneaky good move when it comes to keeping surprise presents an *actual* surprise.

Or maybe you have a not-so-secret selfie stash you don’t necessarily want everyone to see. We’re certainly not anti-selfie, but if you like taking selfies and aren’t comfortable having them in a super-accessible place, a hidden album on your iPhone may be a perfect place to keep them.

How to hide photos on iPhone

First, make sure you’ve updated your iPhone’s software to the latest iOS. Now let’s hide those photos.

Step 1:
Open Photos on your iPhone and find the pic/s or video/s you want to hide.

To grab a whole batch, tap “Select” in the upper righthand corner, then tap the images you want to hide.

Step 2:
Tap the “More” icon on the top right corner of your iPhone screen.

It’s the three dots in the corner.

Credit: Mashable screenshot / Apple

Step 3:
Tap “Hide”.

It’s marked by a symbol of an eyeball with a line going through it.

Credit: Mashable screenshot / Apple

Step 4:
When prompted, tap “Hide Photo.”

Your files will now be stored in your “Hidden” album.

Credit: Mashable screenshot / Apple

Step 5:
Tap “Hidden” to see the hidden photos on your iPhone.

You can find the album by tapping “Albums” on the menu at the bottom of the screen, then “Hidden” which is characterized by the same eyeball icon as before. As Apple notes, with iOS 16, your Hidden album will be locked by default. To open it, you’ll need to authenticate with your Apple ID or Face ID if you’ve set it up (more on that below).

Credit: Mashable screenshot / Apple

How to activate a hidden album on your iPhone (and how to lock it with Face ID)

Perhaps you’re not satisfied with simply hiding individual photos and you’d like to learn how to make and navigate hidden albums on your iPhone as well. If that’s the case, here’s what you do:

Step 1:
Go to your iPhone Settings and scroll down to “Photos.” Tap it.

Step 2:
Scroll down and tap the “Show Hidden Album” toggle.

When the toggle is lit up green and switched to the right, that means the “Hidden” album designation (not the photos themselves) will appear under “Utilities” in your “Albums” tab in Photos. When “Show Hidden Album” is switched off, the Hidden album on your iPhone will no longer appear under “Utilities”, meaning no one can even see it exists. You can switch it off without fear of your Hidden photos being deleted. Once you switch it back on, your Hidden album will be right where it was before.

Credit: Mashable screenshot / Apple

Step 3:
To set up Face ID to view your Hidden album, simply tap the toggle to green.

This will require Face ID for both your Hidden album and Recently Deleted.

Please note that if someone knows all the information we discussed in this story — how to hide photos on an iPhone and how to access hidden albums on iPhones — then they know enough to be able to access your stealthily stored away photos, even if you’ve taken these precautions. The “Hide Photo” feature on iPhones is not a 100 percent fail-safe way to keep your photos hidden, though making sure you’ve got Face ID set up is a really strong recommendation.

Be that as it may, making use of the “Hide” iPhone feature for photos is still a great idea, because there’s always the chance that someone looking through your phone doesn’t know this information. Therefore, using the “Hide” feature still means you’re better off than you were before, and it costs you nothing, so we’d say it’s easily worth a try.

This article originally published in January 2021 and was most recently updated in April 2024.