vivo app lock: how to lock apps and your gallery on a vivo phone

vivo phones have a built-in app lock, so you don't need to install anything to lock WhatsApp, your gallery or any other app. vivo calls it app encryption, and it lives under Privacy and app encryption in Settings. Here's how to set it up on a vivo or iQOO phone, what it protects, and what it doesn't.

Menu names vary between Funtouch OS and OriginOS versions. The path below is the one vivo's own help uses. If a menu doesn't match your phone, search Settings for "app encryption" or "privacy password".

Step 1: set a privacy password

vivo's app lock uses a privacy password, separate from your screen lock. The same password protects hidden apps and File Safe.

1. Open Settings and tap Fingerprint, face and password. On some phones it's called Fingerprints and passwords, Security or Privacy.
2. Tap Privacy and app encryption, then Set privacy password.
3. Choose your security question and answer, and keep the answer somewhere safe. It's the only way to reset a forgotten privacy password.

Make the password different from your screen lock. If it's the same, anyone who can unlock your phone can open your locked apps too.

Step 2: lock your apps

1. Go back to Privacy and app encryption and enter your privacy password.
2. Tap App encryption.
3. Turn on the switch next to each app you want to lock, such as Albums, WhatsApp or Instagram.

The app now asks for your privacy password, or your fingerprint, every time it opens. Locking an app also locks its clone, if you've cloned it with App clone.

How to lock your gallery on vivo

vivo doesn't let you lock single albums, but you can lock the whole Albums app the same way: turn on its switch in App encryption. Remember to lock Google Photos too, if you use it, since it shows the same photos.

To keep particular photos private rather than the whole gallery, move them into File Safe instead, as our guide to hiding photos on vivo explains.

Things vivo's app lock doesn't do

vivo's own help is clear about the limits:

• It locks the app, not the app's data. Photos, files and downloads from a locked app can still show up elsewhere, such as in the gallery or File Manager. vivo suggests File Safe for those.
• Settings can't be locked. So anyone with your unlocked phone can open Settings and see what's installed.
• Some apps can't be locked, because the app itself doesn't allow it.
• It stays open for a minute. If you leave a locked app and come back within a minute without locking the screen, it doesn't ask again. On newer versions, you can change this with App lock time in Privacy and app encryption.
• Notifications still arrive, but without their details.
• There's no limit on wrong guesses. vivo says you can enter a wrong privacy password any number of times, so pick one that's long and hard to guess.

Our guide to locking your gallery on Android explains why a lock on the gallery app still leaves your photos open to other apps.

How to remove the lock, or reset the password

• Unlock one app: in Privacy and app encryption → App encryption, turn off its switch.
• Turn off app lock completely: in Privacy and app encryption, tap Disable privacy password. This also turns off File Safe, so move anything in it out first.
• Forgot the privacy password: in Privacy and app encryption, tap Forgot password and answer your security question. If you've forgotten that answer too, vivo's only way out is Erase all data, which wipes the phone.

Want an app out of sight instead of locked? See how to hide apps on vivo.

Locking the photos, not just the app

An app lock stops someone opening the gallery. It doesn't stop them seeing your photos through File Manager, Google Photos, a chat app's photo picker or a computer. To protect the photos themselves, they need to leave the gallery and be encrypted.

That's what a vault app like Hidey does. It encrypts each photo on your phone, checks the encrypted copy, then deletes the original, so no other app can open it. The vault has its own PIN or fingerprint, and backs up to a hidden folder in your own Google Drive, encrypted before upload. The trade-off to know: that 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).