In contrast, photos you add to the hidden folder on iOS sync along with anything else you sync to Apple Photos. The reason is simple: Photos you put in your locked folder are not uploaded to Google Photos. Both allow you to create a folder in which you have to authenticate with either a fingerprint or your face to see the contents.īut Android’s locked folders implementation, which should be available on most Android phones running at least Android 12, is much better than Apple’s hidden album. Set up and get to know your locked and hidden foldersĪt a glance, locked folders on Android and hidden albums on iOS are the same. Now is a good time to get to know how both of those features work, alongside a few of the other privacy tools that Apple and Google have built into their respective photo apps. It’s a tiny thing, but it makes the hidden folder feel far safer to store photos in, and it comes closer to Android’s (still superior) Locked Folder feature. Tucked away among the fancier new features in iOS 16 is a small but welcome addition: biometric locks on the hidden and deleted albums. Maybe it’s a particularly, uh, personal selfie, or perhaps it’s the directions to a top-secret party in the woods.

Sometimes you want to snap a photo that’s just for you.

Ios lock folder