Secure Folder backup is gone: how to keep your photos when you switch phones

Looking for Secure Folder's backup option and can't find it? It's gone. Samsung's support page says it plainly: "Data backup is no longer available for Secure Folder." That leaves one official way to move Secure Folder to a new phone, and it only works between Galaxy phones. Here's what still works, what doesn't, and how to keep your photos safe when you switch.

What changed

Secure Folder used to back up to Samsung's cloud, and you could restore it on a new phone. Now:

No new backups. Samsung's support page says data backup is no longer available for Secure Folder.
Old backups only on older phones. On phones with One UI 8 or later, Samsung says Secure Folder's restore option isn't available either.
Smart Switch is the answer Samsung gives for moving Secure Folder to a new phone, and Smart Switch only transfers to another Galaxy phone.

Moving Secure Folder with Smart Switch

Put both phones close together, or connect them with a USB cable.
Open Smart Switch on both. On the new phone tap Receive on this phone, and on the old one Send from this phone.
Choose Wireless or Cable, and tap Allow on the old phone when asked.
On the new phone, select Secure Folder and tap Transfer.
When it's done, open Secure Folder on the new phone and check your photos are there.

Owners report mixed results: for some it just works, and for others Secure Folder arrives empty or doesn't arrive at all. So don't reset, sell or trade in the old phone until you've opened Secure Folder on the new one and seen your photos. You may also need your Secure Folder password on the new phone, so make sure you know it before you start.

If Smart Switch didn't bring Secure Folder across

Keep the old phone as it is. As long as it still has Secure Folder, your photos are safe.
Try the transfer again with a cable, and select only Secure Folder.
Move the photos out and carry them over yourself. On the old phone, open Secure Folder's Gallery, select the photos, tap ⋮ and choose Move out of Secure Folder. Then copy them to the new phone, and move them into its Secure Folder.

Before you move photos out, turn off Google Photos backup if they're private. Otherwise they can upload to your Google account the moment they're back in your gallery. Copying them to a computer with a cable keeps them off the cloud. Our guide to stopping Google Photos backup shows how.

Switching to a phone that isn't a Samsung

Smart Switch can't help here, and no other phone has Secure Folder. Move the photos out of Secure Folder on the old phone, transfer them, and hide them again with whatever the new phone offers. Our list of Secure Folder alternatives covers the options on other phones, and our guide to moving hidden photos to a new phone covers every common hiding place.

Protecting the photos until then

Without a backup, Secure Folder's photos exist on one phone only. A lost, stolen or broken phone takes them with it, and so does uninstalling Secure Folder without moving your media out first. If those photos matter, keep a second copy somewhere you control, such as a computer or an encrypted backup. Our guide to what happens when you uninstall a vault explains why the backup is the part that counts.

A vault with a backup that moves with you

Hidey works on any Android phone, Samsung or not, and both of its backups are free:

Google Drive backup. Your vault backs up automatically to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive, encrypted on your phone before upload. On a new phone, install Hidey, tap restore, sign in with Google and enter your PIN. The vault opens straight away, and your files follow in the background.
A backup file. Export the whole vault as one encrypted file, protected by a code Hidey shows you once, and restore it on any phone, even without a Google account.

The trade-off to know: the Drive backup also lets you reset a forgotten PIN through Google after a 24-hour wait, so whoever controls your Google account could reset it too, unless you turn on zero-knowledge mode (Pro). Here's what Google can and can't see in that backup.