Google Photos Locked Folder: where to find it, backup, and moving to a new phone

Locked Folder is the private space inside Google Photos. Photos and videos you move into it leave your photo grid, search and albums, other apps can't see them, and they open only with your phone's screen lock. Here's where to find Locked Folder on Android, how to set it up and use it, how its backup works, and how to take it with you to a new phone.

The steps follow Google's own help for the Google Photos app on Android. If you only want a photo out of your main view, Archive does that without a lock, as our guide to hiding photos in Google Photos explains.

Where to find Locked Folder

Open Google Photos, tap Collections at the bottom, then Locked. On a computer, it's Locked Folder at photos.google.com, but only for items that were backed up.

Google says Locked Folder needs Android 6 or later, and it isn't available on fully managed devices, such as some work phones, or for certain account types. If it's missing or empty when it shouldn't be, see Locked Folder missing or empty?

How to set up Locked Folder

1. In Google Photos, tap Collections, then Locked.
2. Tap Set up Locked Folder.
3. Unlock with your phone's screen lock.

You'll also be asked to set it up the first time you move a photo in. Locked Folder needs a screen lock, and Google says its password is the same as your screen lock: you can't give it a different one. So anyone who knows how to unlock your phone can open it.

How to move photos into Locked Folder

1. In Google Photos, tap Photos and select the photos or videos.
2. At the bottom, tap Add to, then Move to Locked Folder.
3. Tap Move.

Two things Google warns about. If Locked Folder's backup is off, the Google Photos backups of the photos you move are deleted, so they end up on this phone only. And only the original moves: copies, edited versions and shared copies that others saved stay where they are. To move something from the Trash, restore it first.

On a Pixel 4 or later, you can save straight from the camera too. In the Pixel camera app, touch and hold the preview of your last photo or video, next to the shutter, and tap Locked Folder. Our guide to hiding apps and photos on a Pixel covers Private space too.

How to take photos out

Open Locked Folder, select the photos or videos and move them out. They go back to your photo grid. Deleting them inside Locked Folder is permanent: Google says Locked Folder items can't be moved to the Trash.

Does Locked Folder back up?

Only if you turn it on. Locked Folder has its own backup switch:

1. In Google Photos, tap your profile picture, then Photos settings.
2. Tap Backup, then Back up Locked Folder, and unlock with your screen lock.
3. Turn Back up Locked Folder on.

Google Photos backup has to be on for this to work. You can also back up single items by hand: select them inside Locked Folder and tap Back up. Backed-up items count towards your Google storage.

With backup on, you can open Locked Folder on your other devices and on the web when you're signed in to your Google account, which also means anyone who gets into your Google account can open it. With it off, the items live only on this phone, and Google says they're lost if you uninstall Google Photos, clear its data, reset the phone or lose it.

How to move Locked Folder to a new phone

• If backup is on, sign in to Google Photos on the new phone with the same account, open Collections → Locked and unlock it with the new phone's screen lock.
• If backup is off, Google says Locked Folder items aren't carried over by phone-to-phone or cloud transfers. Before you switch, turn on its backup, or move the photos out, transfer them and move them back in on the new phone.

Keep the old phone until Locked Folder shows up on the new one. Our guide to moving hidden photos to a new phone covers the other ways to do it.

What Locked Folder won't do

To keep its photos from showing up by accident, Google says you can't add Locked Folder items to albums, edit them, share them with other apps or move them to the Trash. They don't appear in search, albums, shared items or memories, and they're taken off smart displays like Nest Hub. Copies of a photo that you made before moving it, including ones in the Trash, stay where they are, as our guide to copies left in Google Photos explains.

A lock of its own

Locked Folder's one lock is your screen lock, and its backup is only as private as your Google account. Our Locked Folder comparison goes through what that means in practice.

Hidey is a vault app that gives your photos a lock of their own: its own PIN or password, separate from your screen lock, or your fingerprint. It encrypts each photo and video you hide on your phone, checks the encrypted copy, then deletes the original, and its backup to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive is free and encrypted before upload, so your photos come with you to any Android phone. The security page has the details. If you forget your PIN, you can reset it through Google after a 24-hour wait, so whoever controls your Google account could too, unless you turn on zero-knowledge mode (Pro).