[iOS 16] How to Lock and Protect Hidden Photos Album on iPhone

Part 1: Can I Lock a Hidden Photo Album with Face ID/Touch ID in iOS 16?

In the latest iOS 16 update, you can surely lock and protect hidden photos on iPhone with Face ID or Touch ID scan. However, iPhones and iPads still lack the feature to lock the apps with the password or biometrics like in android phones.

The App locking feature is convenient when you don’t want anyone to open up and look into any app, especially when you aren’t comfortable with anyone accessing the Photos app on your iPhone. Unfortunately, such a feature isn’t available in iOS, but you can hope that Apple will add it in the future, probably in the fully functional iOS 16 updates.

Part 2: How to Lock iOS 16 Hidden Photos Album on iPhone?

In order to lock hidden photos on iPhone, ensure your iPhone is running the latest iOS 16 version. Also, you’ll have to enable the screen lock with the passcode to enable the hidden photos locking feature on your device.

Follow the steps below to lock your photos album with a Password or Face/ Touch ID.

• Navigate to the Settings app on your device, scroll down and tap on the Photos.

• Tap the Use Face ID toggle to turn on the biometrics (Face/Touch ID) for hidden photos.

  

• Enable the Show Hidden Album toggle if you want the hidden albums to appear in the photos app.
• Open up the Photos, and scroll down to the utilities. The lock icon will appear on the hidden album, which indicates it’s password protected.
• If you tap on the hidden album, it’ll ask you to enter the passcode or use the biometrics to unlock it.

• It’s worth noting that this feature is rolled out in iOS 16 betas and might get modified in future updates when apple releases the full and stable version of iOS 16.

Part 3: How to Hide Photo Album on iPhone iOS 16?

The ability to hide a photo album on an iPhone isn't new to the iOs 16, as it was also available in the previous iOS versions. However, it's quite handy to use if you are still unaware of it.

In order to lock hidden photos on iPhone, you must hide them first. To hide any photo or album in the photos on your iPhone, open up the photo/video you want to hide, tap on the share, and tap hide to move it to the hidden album.

You can easily access the hidden album in the photos, and of course, if you hand over your device to anyone, they can access it too. In order to make it a little more secure and protected, you can hide the hidden album from the photos app. This way, the hidden album would completely disappear from the photo apps in the utilities section. Follow the steps below to hide the hidden photo album on iPhone running iOS 16.

• Navigate to the Settings, scroll down and tap Photos.
• In the Photos settings, scroll down a bit and turn off the Hidden Album toggle to make it disappear from the photos.
• Your hidden album won’t show anymore in the photos app; you can enable it in the same way whenever you need to access it.

Part 4: How to Transfer Locked Hidden Photos to PC (Effective & Easy)

Now you know how to Lock Hidden Photos on iPhone on iOS 16, but what if you have to transfer it to your PC? You might think of a standard method; moving all the hidden photos to the unhidden albums and then transferring them to the PC, right?

But that’s quite time-consuming, especially when you have plenty of photos and videos in the locked hidden album. UltFone iOS Data Manager is the ultimate solution to transfer all your hidden photos album with just one click-process - without unhiding the photos/videos.

Other than transferring your hidden photos album to the PC, UltFone iOS data manager is the best alternative to iTunes. Transferring photos/videos, importing/exporting, creating a backup, or restoring them is just a game of a few clicks compared to the lengthy process of iTunes.

• One-click to export photos from iOS device to computer
• Backup/restore/manage/transfer iOS data without iTunes sync
• Convert HEIC to JPG at one time max 1,000 photos on Windows
• Create a virtual USB drive to manage iOS data
• Compatible with new iPhone 14 series and iOS/iPadOS 16

Here’s how to transfer photos from iPhone to PC/Mac using UltFone iOS Data Manager:

• Step 1Launch the software on your computer and connect your iPhone to the computer with the help of a digital cable. After that, choose “Manage” from the software’s main interface.

  

• Step 2 Go to the “Photos” tab and select the photos you would like to transfer. After that, click on the “Export” button and choose a location to store these files on your computer.

  

• Step 3 In a while, all the pictures on your iPhone will be imported to your computer, and that’s it. Or you can directly use the quick feature: One-Click to Export Photos to PC, to transfer all your photos without selection.

  

Part 5: How to Unlock the Hidden and Recently Deleted Folders with Face ID/Touch ID

Apart from locking the hidden album on your iPhone/iPad, the iOS 16 feature also brings a feature to safeguard your Recently Deleted media content in the photos. If you have enabled the Use Face ID feature, it’ll keep it locked, and deleted photos and videos will remain for 30 days.

It’s quite a convenient feature, as you often delete your private photos and videos and forget to delete them from the Recently Deleted album permanently. Anyone can easily look into it without entering a passcode or verifying with biometrics.

Here are the steps to unlock the hidden and recently deleted album with Face/Touch ID on your iPhone.

• Open up the Photos app and tap Albums at the bottom of the screen.
• Under the Utilities section, tap on the Hidden album and authenticate with the Face/Touch ID to unlock it. Similarly, tap the recently deleted album and authenticate to open it.
• When you enable the Face/Touch ID requirement for the hidden album, it also implements automatically on the recently deleted album. You can’t disable the lock on the recently deleted. If you want to disable the lock feature on the recently deleted album, you’ll have to disable it for the hidden album.

Closing Thoughts

The latest iOS 16 update to the iOS devices makes it relatively easier to lock the hidden photos on iPhone/iPad. In this blog, we discussed how you could lock the hidden photos album. We also discussed how you could transfer the hidden photos album to the PC using - UltFone iOS Data Manager.