Can you password protect photos on iPhone?

You can’t password protect photos on iPhone one at a time: Apple’s iPhone User Guide describes no way to put a password on a single photo in Photos. You can lock the Hidden album, lock the whole Photos app, or lock a photo inside a note, and only the note can use a password other than your iPhone passcode.

Below: how each lock works, what it opens with, and what it leaves open. The steps follow Apple’s iPhone User Guide as read on 6 Nov 2026.

1. Hide the photos in the Hidden album

This is the closest thing to locking certain photos. Open a photo, tap the menu button, then tap Hide. To hide several, tap Select, pick them, then use the same menu. Apple says hidden photos move to the Hidden collection and “you can’t view them anywhere else.”

The Hidden collection is locked by default. Apple’s guide says you unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. To open it, tap Collections, then Hidden (below Utilities), then View Album.

Two settings sit in Settings, then Apps, then Photos:

• Turn off Use Face ID, Use Touch ID or Use Passcode, and Apple says the Hidden and Recently Deleted collections change from locked to unlocked.
• Turn off Show Hidden Album, and the Hidden collection stops appearing in the Photos app.

What it leaves open: the lock covers everything in the album at once, and it is your iPhone passcode. The same page says that with iCloud Photos, hiding a photo hides it on all your devices. For the passcode question in full, see Can the Hidden album have its own passcode?

2. Lock the Photos app

Photos itself can ask for Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode every time it opens. On the Home Screen:

1. Touch and hold the Photos icon until the quick actions menu opens.
2. Tap Require Face ID (or Touch ID or Passcode).
3. Tap it again, then authenticate.

These steps follow Apple’s Lock or hide an app page. Photos is not on the list in Apple’s Personal Safety guide of apps that come with iPhone and can’t be locked (Calculator, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Find My, Maps, Shortcuts and Settings). Apple’s Lock or hide an app page also says an app that comes with iPhone can’t be hidden, so you can lock Photos but not make it disappear.

Apple says a locked app relocks after you quit it, and that its information stays out of CarPlay, notification previews, search, Siri suggestions and your call history. The lock applies only to that iPhone and does not sync with iCloud.

What it leaves open: this protects the app, not individual photos. Apple’s page does not say what other apps see when they offer to pick a photo, so test that on your own phone before you rely on it. And anyone who knows your iPhone passcode can open Photos.

3. Put a photo in a locked note

Notes is the one place where a photo can sit behind a code that is not your iPhone passcode. In Settings, then Apps, then Notes, tap Password and choose either your device passcode or a custom password. Then open a note and lock it: tap the menu button, then tap Lock.

Apple’s Notes page lists what can’t be locked: notes with PDF, audio, video, Keynote, Pages or Numbers attachments, notes that sync with other accounts, Quick Notes, and notes shared in iCloud. Photos are not on that list.

Limits Apple states:

• If you forget a custom password and can’t use Face ID or Touch ID, Apple can’t help you get the notes back. Resetting the password does not open earlier locked notes.
• The title of a locked note stays visible in your notes list.
• Opening one locked note opens all your locked notes in the same account for several minutes.
• If you choose your device passcode, a locked note opens with the same code as the rest of your phone.

A note is also a copy. The original stays in your library until you delete it, and a deleted photo stays in Recently Deleted for 30 days, a collection that opens with your iPhone passcode. A note works for a handful of photos. It is not built to hold a library.

What these locks don’t do

Each of the three keeps out someone who picks up your unlocked phone. None of them gives you a second code for your photos, apart from a note with a custom password.

Guides elsewhere describe workarounds using Shortcuts or Screen Time. They are not covered here because Apple’s pages don’t document them as photo locks. Apple’s current Screen Time page describes Time Allowances, so older steps written around App Limits may not match what you see.

If you want a code that isn’t your iPhone passcode

Anyone who knows your iPhone passcode can open the Hidden album. The passcode can’t open Stillmoat. Stillmoat is a photo vault app with its own PIN, and its Face ID never falls back to your iPhone passcode. That helps only if the person you want to keep out knows your iPhone passcode. If not, the Hidden album or a locked Photos app costs nothing and may be enough.

Related guides

• Can the Hidden album have its own passcode?