How to hide photos on Samsung: every built-in option, and its limits

A Samsung Galaxy phone gives you four built-in ways to hide photos: hidden albums in Gallery, the Private album, Secure Folder and Google Photos' Locked Folder. They sound alike, but they protect very different things. Here's how to use each one, what it really hides, and the gap all four share.

The four options at a glance

Option	Where	What opens it	Backup
Hide albums	Gallery	Nothing: no lock at all	Same as your other photos
Private album	Gallery, One UI 8.5	Your screen lock or fingerprint	Samsung doesn't say
Secure Folder	Its own app	A separate PIN, pattern or password	No longer offered, only Smart Switch
Locked Folder	Google Photos	Your screen lock or fingerprint	Optional, to your Google account

Option 1: hide albums in Gallery

It's the quickest way to hide pictures on a Samsung phone, but it's tidying rather than security.

1. Open Gallery and tap Albums.
2. Tap ⋮ and choose Hide albums (on some versions, tap View all first).
3. Turn on the switch for each album you want to hide.

Gallery stops showing the album and the photos in it. Nothing else changes: My Files, Google Photos, other apps and a computer still see every photo, and anyone holding your phone can unhide the album with the same three steps (how to see hidden photos on Samsung). It hides whole albums only, so move single photos into an album of their own first.

Option 2: the Private album (One UI 8.5)

On Galaxy phones with One UI 8.5, Gallery has a Private album for single photos and videos.

1. In Gallery, select the photos or videos you want to hide.
2. Tap More (⋮), then Move to private album, then Move.
3. To open it later, tap Menu, then Private album, and unlock it.

The album opens with your fingerprint or your phone's screen lock, and Samsung blocks screenshots inside it. That screen lock is the weak spot: anyone who knows how to unlock your phone can open the Private album too. Samsung's guide doesn't say whether its contents are backed up, so don't let it hold the only copy of anything. Our Private album vs Secure Folder comparison shows which one suits which photos.

Option 3: Secure Folder

Secure Folder is a separate, encrypted space on your phone, protected by Samsung Knox, with its own lock and its own copies of apps such as Gallery.

1. Open Settings, tap Security and privacy, then More security settings, then Secure Folder. (Searching Settings for "Secure Folder" also works.)
2. Choose a lock: a PIN, pattern or password, plus your fingerprint if you like. Use one that's different from your screen lock.
3. In Gallery, select photos, tap ⋮ and choose Move to Secure Folder.

To take a photo out again, open Secure Folder's own Gallery, select it, tap ⋮ and choose Move out of Secure Folder. You can also hide Secure Folder's icon: in its settings, turn off the option that shows it on the Apps screen, and it disappears until you open it from Settings or the quick panel.

It's the strongest of the four, with three things to know before you rely on it:

• No backup. Samsung says data backup is no longer available for Secure Folder. To move it to a new phone, Samsung's answer is Smart Switch, which only transfers to another Galaxy phone. Here's what still works.
• A forgotten password. You can only reset it if you turned on reset with your Samsung account. Otherwise, there's no way back in.
• Uninstalling. Uninstalling Secure Folder deletes everything in it, unless you choose to move your media out first.

Option 4: Google Photos Locked Folder

If you use Google Photos on your Galaxy phone, its Locked Folder works there too.

1. Open Google Photos, tap Collections, then Locked, and set it up.
2. Select photos, tap Add to, then Move to Locked Folder.

Photos in Locked Folder leave your photo grid, search, albums and other apps. It opens with your phone's screen lock, and you can choose whether it's backed up to your Google account. Our guide to Locked Folder vs a vault app covers it in detail.

The gap they share

Each option fixes part of the problem, and all four leave some of the same holes:

• The screen lock. Hidden albums have no lock, and the Private album and Locked Folder open with your screen lock. The people you'd most like to keep out, a partner, a child or a friend who borrows your phone, often know it.
• Backups. Secure Folder no longer backs up at all, and Samsung doesn't say whether the Private album does. Lose or reset the phone and those photos can go with it.
• Other copies. Hiding a photo on your phone doesn't remove copies already in Google Photos, OneDrive or a chat app. Our guide to copies left in the cloud shows where to look.
• Your next phone. Secure Folder and the Private album only exist on Samsung phones, so switching brands means moving everything out first. Here's how to move hidden photos to a new phone.

And since hidden albums are the first place anyone looks, see how hidden photos get found before you trust them.

Hiding photos on Samsung with Hidey

Hidey is a vault app that works the same on a Galaxy 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, My Files and Google Photos' view of your device. Copies Google Photos had already backed up stay in your cloud library until you delete them there.

The vault has its own PIN or password, separate from your screen lock, with fingerprint unlock if you want it. Backup to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive is free and encrypted before upload, so your photos survive a lost phone and move to your next one, Samsung or not. The trade-off to know: a forgotten PIN can be reset through Google after a 24-hour wait, so whoever controls your Google account could do the same, unless you turn on zero-knowledge mode (Pro). For every option side by side, see how to hide photos on Android.