Switching from Android to iPhone: what happens to hidden and private photos

Android gives you more places to tuck photos away than iPhone does: a locked folder in the gallery, private space on newer phones, makers’ secure folders, memory cards and a wide choice of vault apps. That’s useful while you live on Android. When you move to iPhone, every one of those places needs a deliberate step, because the transfer only reads what’s in the phone’s ordinary photo storage.

What the transfer copies

The iPhone’s official help lists camera photos and videos, photo albums, and files and folders among what moves from Android, using the transfer app on the Android phone during iPhone setup. Both phones need to stay close, plugged in and connected until it finishes.

What it can’t see:

• Locked folders in gallery apps, which are kept apart from the normal library.
• Private space, whose apps and data are sealed off while it’s locked.
• A maker’s secure folder, which is its own protected area.
• Vault apps, whose files live in their own storage.

Photos in these places are exactly the ones you care about most, so treat them as a separate job.

Step 1: list your private places

On the Android phone, go through each of the places above and note what’s inside. Check the memory card too: the iPhone help asks you to make sure content fits, including anything on a microSD card, so private photos on a card may be swept along with everything else.

Step 2: export each one

• Locked folder: open it and move the photos out to a normal folder you’ll export, or share them to a computer. Do this right before you export, not days earlier, so they don’t sit in the open gallery.
• Private space: unlock it and use the apps inside to export or share their photos to a computer.
• Secure folder: use its own move-out or export option.
• Vault apps: use each app’s export or backup. See how to export everything from a vault app.

Open a few exported files on the computer to check they’re ordinary photos.

Step 3: keep them out of the new main library

If you move private photos into the Android gallery before the transfer, they’ll arrive in the iPhone’s main library, and from there in your cloud photo library if it’s on. Better options:

• keep private photos on the computer during the transfer, then import them directly into a vault on the iPhone, or
• import them on the iPhone and move them straight into the Hidden album, which can be locked. See how to hide photos on iPhone.

Step 4: transfer and check

Run the transfer during iPhone setup. Afterwards, check that ordinary photos arrived, then import the private set into its new home. Spot-check the photos that matter most.

Step 5: clear the Android phone

Once you’re sure, reset the Android phone. A reset erases everything on it, including locked folders and private space, but not your cloud accounts. What a factory reset erases on Android explains what to remove from the cloud separately. Delete the computer copies of private photos once they’re safely in place.

Moving the other way? See switching from iPhone to Android.

Silo, coming soon to iPhone and Android, can export everything in its vault, which is the reliable way to move between platforms. Restoring a vault with your recovery phrase from Silo’s own encrypted backup is arriving with launch, starting on Android.