Many people love to share nature shots, family photos, and selfies with their friends. These are personal photos that are not meant to be seen publicly. Luckily, there are some great Android apps that help you hide photos and videos on your phone from prying eyes. These apps offer features like stealth mode, PIN protection, and top-notch encryption to ensure that your precious photos are not shared with just anyone.
All of them are free, but you can upgrade to premium if you need additional functionality. Some free apps boast features that are usually only available in premium versions of others, so read the description carefully before choosing a paid option.
Vault
Vault — is a “virtual safe” that can protect your photos, videos, and even apps. You can also protect your SMS, call log, and contact list, thanks to the special “Private Contact” feature that hides your important files. Most importantly, the password protection feature ensures that all photos are hidden. You can only open them after entering the password.
The premium version has a great feature: the app uses your device's front camera to take pictures of an intruder trying to open your hidden photos. The premium version has many more features, including creating a fake vault, a cloud service, and a special mode where you can hide the vault icon from your home screen.
But I recommend using the free version if your main goal is to hide only photos and videos. It will be enough. In addition to media protection, there are bonus features such as password protection for SMS, call logs, and messages.
Hide It Pro
If your curious friend searches for photos and videos on your smartphone, with Hide It Pro it won't find anything. That's because your files will be hidden using a seemingly innocuous audio player, which, by the way, is fully functional. There is also a slideshow and video player function that allow you to view files without having to remove their hidden mode.
This is your secret hiding place that no one can find unless they long press the desired shortcut. A single press will only reveal the volume buttons. The app allows you to place photos and videos in different folders. You can sort files or folders by name and select the files you want to hide.
Video Locker
Video Locker — is a virtual storage for your videos that protects them by moving them to a secret location on your phone. The hidden files are then encrypted using an advanced 128 AES encryption method. This provides complete protection as the videos cannot be found even if an intruder steals your SD card. The app uses a secret PIN method to hide the files. You will need to enter the passcode to view the video or photo.
You can save your videos in folders or hide individual folders. The app can be completely invisible and will not appear in the list of recently launched ones. It also automatically closes itself if your device goes to sleep.
If you forget your PIN, you can have it sent to your email. The premium version gives you no ads and a special stealth mode that replaces the app with a simple calculator. If you don't need these features, the free version is fine.
Vault
Vault creates a private gallery that hides your files from the main gallery. Once you have transferred your personal photos and videos to it, simply protect the app with a PIN or text password.
What makes Vaulty unique is that it uses your phone's front-facing camera to automatically capture an intruder trying to break into your secret gallery. This feature, available in the premium version of Vault, is free in Vaulty.
Vaulty also lets you back up your hidden files (though you'll need to subscribe to a cloud storage service to use this feature). An online backup can be very useful if your phone is ever lost or broken, allowing you to transfer your files to your new device.
AppLock
AppLock is usually used to password protect SMS, contacts, call logs, and correspondence. But it can also hide images and videos. Just select the photos you want and enter a PIN to hide them. To view them, you will need to enter the PIN you specified. For greater secrecy, you can hide the app icon and then easily open it after entering the password.
If you are afraid that AppLock can be removed, then simply protect it with a password using the advanced settings. No one will be able to remove it until the password is entered. The free version offers protection only for applications, videos and photos. AppLock requires very little memory to operate. Overall, this is a good option, but you will have to make do with the minimum functionality in the free version.