How to get your photos out of a vault app

You should be able to leave any app that holds your photos. Whether you are switching vault apps, changing phones or just want a copy, the ability to export is the most important feature that no one advertises. It also matters for a plainer reason: on both iPhone and Android, deleting an app removes the data it stored, so a vault with no export has no way out.

What a good export looks like

• Everything, not just some. Photos, videos and any other files.
• Full quality. Files come out as they went in, not shrunk or recompressed.
• Ordinary files. JPEG, HEIC, MP4 and the like, which any phone or computer opens.
• Structure kept. Albums become folders, so your sorting isn’t lost.
• Free, without an account. You shouldn’t need a subscription or a sign-in to get your own photos back.
• Resumable. If it stops, you can carry on.

If the app you use doesn’t do these, that is worth knowing now. Are photo vault apps safe lists other checks.

Test before you need it

Don’t wait for the day you have to leave. Do this once, now:

1. Export a handful of items.
2. Open them in your normal gallery app. Do photos look right? Do videos play with sound?
3. Check the file sizes against your originals, if you still have them.
4. Check that names, albums and order make sense.

If anything is off, you have learned it while everything is still safe.

How to export everything

The steps differ by app, but follow this pattern:

1. Make room. Exporting writes a full second copy, so check free space first. A vault of many gigabytes needs that much free.
2. Pick where. Choose a folder on the phone, or a drive or computer you trust. Exported files aren’t protected, so pick a private place.
3. Keep the phone awake and plugged in. Large exports take time.
4. Don’t lock the app or switch away if the app stops when it locks.
5. Check the result. The app should tell you how many files were written, how many were skipped and how many failed, and why.
6. Open a sample of the output.

Saving a single photo

To send one photo to someone, you don’t need a full export. Most apps have a share or save action for one item. It is usually better to save to your photo library only the photos you mean to use, because once there, the photo is in your library, and in your cloud sync if that is on.

After you export

Exported files are not encrypted. Anyone who can open the folder can see them. So:

• Move them somewhere private, such as another vault, a locked drive or an encrypted disk.
• Don’t leave them in a folder that syncs to a cloud account unless you know who can read it. See is cloud photo backup encrypted.
• Delete the export when you are done with it, if it was only a stopover.

Exporting from Silo

Silo is coming soon. Its export is free on every plan, always. Go to Settings and choose Export everything. Choose what to export (everything, an album or selected items), choose a folder on the phone, and Silo writes the files exactly as imported at full quality, with each album as a folder. Deleted items are left out. It shows how many files were written, how many were already there and how many failed, with the reason. If it stops, or the vault locks, choose the same folder to carry on. Finished files are skipped. Silo warns you that exported files are not encrypted.

Silo’s file format is also published, along with an independent decrypt tool that opens a copy of a vault with your recovery phrase, so your vault doesn’t depend on the app alone.