How to hide photos on Redmi, Xiaomi and POCO (Hidden album and Private album)
Hide an album or move photos to the Private album in Xiaomi’s Gallery, see hidden photos again, and know what each option protects on HyperOS.
· 7 min read
Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO phones share the same Gallery app, and it has two built-in ways to hide photos: hiding an album, and the Private album. One just tidies photos away, the other locks them behind a password. Here's how to use each on HyperOS, how to see hidden photos again, and where both fall short. On older MIUI phones the steps are much the same.
Hidden albums vs the Private album
| Hidden album | Private album | |
|---|---|---|
| What you hide | A whole album | Single photos and videos |
| Lock | None | Your privacy protection password |
| Encrypted | No | Xiaomi says it is |
| How to see it again | Gallery settings | Pull down on the Albums screen |
How to hide an album on Redmi, Xiaomi and POCO
- Open Gallery and go to your albums.
- Press and hold the album you want to hide.
- Tap Hide, then OK.
The album disappears from Gallery's main view. It's only hidden from Gallery: the photos stay in their folder, so File Manager, a computer and other apps can still find them, and there's no password to stop anyone unhiding it.
How to see hidden albums and unhide them
- Open Gallery and tap ⋮ at the top right.
- Tap Settings, then View hidden albums.
- Select an album and tap Unhide, then OK.
If your photos aren't there either, they may be in the Private album, or somewhere else entirely. Our guide to finding hidden photos on Android covers every other place to look.
How to hide photos in the Private album
The Private album is the better choice for photos that matter, because it needs a password and Xiaomi says its contents are encrypted.
Set the password first. Open Settings, tap Fingerprints, face data, and screen lock, then Privacy protection password, and follow the steps. If you skip this, Gallery asks you to set it the first time you open the Private album. Add your Xiaomi Account when it offers, because that's how you reset the password if you forget it.
Then move photos in:
- Open Gallery and select the photos or videos.
- Tap ⋮ at the bottom right, then Add to album.
- Choose Private album and tap OK.
The photos leave your normal albums and only show up inside the Private album.
How to open the Private album
- Open Gallery and tap Albums.
- Swipe down on the Albums screen and let go.
- Enter your privacy protection password, or use your fingerprint.
To make a photo public again, open it in the Private album and move it back to an ordinary album.
If you forget the privacy password
If you added a Xiaomi Account, you can reset the privacy protection password with that account's password. Don't factory reset the phone to get around it, because that erases the Private album along with everything else.
Where both fall short
The Private album is a real step up from hiding an album, but a few gaps remain:
- Hidden albums aren't private. Anyone who knows where Gallery's settings are can unhide them in seconds, and a file manager shows them anyway.
- One phone only. The Private album lives on this phone. If it's lost, broken or reset, its photos can go with it, unless you've confirmed they're in a backup you can restore.
- The next phone. It only exists in Xiaomi's Gallery, so moving to another brand means taking every photo out first.
- Copies elsewhere. Hiding a photo on your phone doesn't remove copies Google Photos or a chat app already has. Here's where those copies hide.
Xiaomi phones can also lock the Gallery app itself with App lock, which stops casual scrolling but has limits of its own.
Hiding photos on Redmi with Hidey
Hidey is a vault app that works the same on a Redmi, Xiaomi or POCO phone as on any other Android phone. It encrypts each photo on your phone, checks the encrypted copy, then deletes the original, so it's gone from Gallery, File Manager and every other app. The vault opens with its own PIN or password, or your fingerprint, and the calculator disguise is free if you'd rather it looked like a calculator.
Backup to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive is free and encrypted before upload, so your photos survive a lost phone and come with you to the next one, whatever the brand. If you forget your PIN, you can reset it through Google after a 24-hour wait. The catch is that whoever controls your Google account could do the same, unless you turn on zero-knowledge mode (Pro). To compare every option, see how to hide photos on Android.