How to Keep Private Videos Out of the Photos App on iPhone

What the Hidden album does and does not hide

Photos has a Hidden album, and since iOS 16 it needs Face ID or your passcode to open, which is a real improvement. But hidden videos are still in your Photos library: they sync to iCloud Photos, they are included in Shared Library if you use it, and they appear in the photo picker of any app that asks for full library access. Hiding a video after recording also means it spent time in Recents first.

Locking a video inside a locked Note works for small files, and the Files app can hold copies, but both involve exporting from Photos and remembering to delete the original.

Record straight into a private library

The cleanest fix is to record with an app that does not use Photos at all. Multi-mode Video Recorder saves every recording inside its own storage on your iPhone. Nothing is added to Photos, iCloud Photos or any shared album unless you tap Save to Photos yourself. The files are protected with iOS data protection, so they stay encrypted whenever the phone is locked, and you can put the whole library behind Face ID or Touch ID.

1. Record in any mode: Blackout, Level, Dual or Blur.
2. Open the library to play the clip. It lives here, and nowhere else, until you decide otherwise.
3. In Settings, turn on Lock library with Face ID. The library asks for Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode every time you come back to the app.
4. Use Save to Photos or Share only for the clips you want elsewhere, and Delete for the ones you do not.

Where copies can still exist

• iPhone backups. iCloud Backup and computer backups include app data, so the recordings are inside your encrypted backup unless you exclude the app in iCloud Backup settings.
• Anything you shared. A clip sent through the share sheet is a copy owned by the app or person you sent it to.
• Saved to Photos. Once saved, that copy follows the normal Photos rules; deleting it in the app does not delete it from Photos, and the other way round.

Deleting for good

Deleting a recording in the app removes the video, its metadata and its thumbnail immediately; there is no Recently Deleted folder to empty. Deleting the app removes every recording in one go. Keep that in mind before you uninstall: save anything you want to keep to Photos first.