This was taken using a Samsung Galaxy S20 FE, and as you can see you now have the option of setting up a Locked Folder, so you can keep personal photos away from prying eyes. Judging from our screenshots though, it seems that the company has kept its promise in terms of Android. An iOS version will be arriving later in the year. Thankfully, the company has now moved on and started rolling out this feature to more Android devices.

Google Photos is a handy app if you’re looking to back up a few of your photos and earlier in the year it introduced this Locked Folder feature just for Pixel phones. It does include an option to hide certain photos from the main library in a 'Hidden' folder which can be literally hidden in the Photos app, but even so, the album can still be seen when the image picker is used in third-party apps, so it's not completely invisible from prying eyes.It’s nice to have the option of keeping private and personal photos away from your general photo library, and now you can, even if you don’t own a Pixel phone.

Google touts its photo and video backup service as 'a safe home for life's memories,' thanks to the 'world-class security' and encryption it uses 'to protect the photos that you back up or share.'ĭespite those safeguards, last year Google was forced to contact some 100,000 users to inform them that some of their private videos backed up on its servers had been accidentally sent to strangers due to a 'technical issue.'Īpple still doesn't offer an equivalent feature is its native Photos app for iOS. Importantly, at least as it currently works on Pixel Phones, any cloud backups of items placed in the Locked Folder are automatically deleted from Google's servers. Google says the feature is coming to iOS 'early next year.' Media saved in the folder remains hidden, meaning the sensitive photos don't show up as users scroll through their Google Photos or any other apps on their device. Google Photos users on iPhone and iPad will soon be able to lock their most sensitive images in a special passcode-protected folder, thanks to a new feature coming to the iOS app (via The Verge).Ĭurrently exclusive to Pixel phones, the privacy-oriented Locked Folder feature allows users to save photos and videos in the app within a separate space that requires a passcode or fingerprint to access.

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