How to Password Protect Photos on iPhone and iPad

Oluwatobi Oni

4 years ago

How to Password Protect Photos on iPhone and iPad

There are photos of ours that are private, that we don’t want others to see. We don’t want those browsing through our camera roll to stumble on these photos so we desire to have a way to hide them. Yes, it’s possible to hide photos on iPhone but hidden photos are moved to a secret album which can still be accessed by anybody making it not so secure. A great way to secure your photos is to password-protect them.

While iOS doesn’t have a native function for password-protecting photos, there is workaround to do so. In this guide, we take you through the process of using the Notes app on your iPhone to password-protect photos.

How to Password Protect Photos Using Notes

To start, move the photos you want password protected to your iPhone if they’re not there yet. When the photos are ready, do the following below:

1. Launch the Notes app, and tap the pencil and paper icon which represents New Note to create a new note.

Tap the New Note icon; Source: howtogeek.com

2. On the new note, type some text that won’t attract attention. This text will be part of the list of note, after you have the note locked.

Type some text to make you identify the note; Source: howtogeek.com

3. Locate the Add Photo icon which looks like camera. iPhone users will see this either above the on-screen keyboard or at the bottom of the screen. iPad users will see this at the top.

4. A menu will be displayed, select Choose Photo or Video.

Tap Choose Photo or Video; Source: howtogeek.com

5. The next screen that opens will display thumbnails of photos you can add. Choose the photos you want to lock. You can identify that they are chosen by a checkmark which will appear.

6. When you’re done with the selection, tap Add. The photos will be added to the note you’re creating.

When you’re done, tap Add; Source: howtogeek.com

7. Lock the note by tapping the Ellipsis icon (can be identified by three dots in a circle).

Tap the Ellipsis icon; Source: howtogeek.com

8. In the next window that shows up, tap Lock.

8. If you have a Notes password set already, Notes will ask you to type it and after that, tap OK.

9. If you don’t have a password set yet, Notes will prompt you to create one. Just know that this password will be required to view all locked notes. If your Notes app is set to sync to iCloud, this same password will also be needed on other Apple devices signed in to iCloud.

10. Input a password and set a hint. If your device has Touch or Face ID, you can also lock Notes using them. Once you’re through with entering your details, tap Done.

Type your info, and tap Done; Source: howtogeek.com

11. Note will give you a confirmation of the lock added, but hold on. This confirmation only enables the lock settings – you’ll still have to set the note itself to be locked.

12. To do this, open the note, locate the Padlock icon in the toolbar and tap it.

Tap the Padlock icon; Source: howtogeek.com

13. There will be a confirmation message that says “This note is locked”. To confirm by yourself, simply tap View Note.

14. When Notes request your password, enter it and type OK.

Input your password and tap OK; Source: howtogeek.com

All the photos inside the secure note that you added will be shown. Ensure you go to the Photos app and delete the photos that you just password-protected. When you’re done with that, go to the Recently Deleted folder in Photos and delete those photos there too.