What is a good Vaulty alternative for iPhone?

Vaulty : Photo Vault & Hide and York Vault side by side

Why do people look for a Vaulty alternative?

Vaulty is one of the oldest vault apps. Its Google Play listing shows a rating of 4.54 from 409,495 ratings and more than 10 million installs. People who search for an alternative usually fall into one of two groups.

They are moving to an iPhone

Squid Tooth says it “builds focused Android software”, and its iOS help page says: “Vaulty is not yet available on iOS. Any apps claiming to be Vaulty in the App Store are unauthorized and potentially dangerous.” There is a waitlist, with no date.

An App Store app named “Vaulty: Hidden Photos Vault” exists. Its seller is MAPPVATE YAZILIM LIMITED SIRKETI, not Squid Tooth. Its listing shows 4.62 from 436 ratings and says it contains ads. Its privacy label lists Email Address and Photos or Videos under Data Linked to You. Some comparison sites review that app as if it were Vaulty. It is a separate product.

They lost files or trust

We read 1,940 Google Play reviews from US English users, from 2018 to October 2026. 670 of them give 1 or 2 stars. We counted themes in those 670 with keyword matches, so the counts are approximate:

Complaint in 1 and 2 star reviews	Reviews
Lost photos or videos	240
App crashes or will not open	125
Backup or Google Drive sync fails	109
Paywall or subscription changes	75
Support does not answer	72
Export or unhide problems	50
Ads	37

Some reviews in their own words:

• “twice within 6 months I opened my app and all images were gone” (1★, September 2026)
• “16 years of pictures and videos gone.” (1★, August 2026)
• “Google drive backup still does not work.” (1★, July 2025)
• “it deleted it instead of unhiding back to gallery” (1★, August 2025)
• “until they put biometrics behind a paywall” (1★, September 2026)
• “Discreteness ruined. ads that aren’t muted” (1★, October 2025)

These counts show what made people write, not how common each problem is among all users.

What to look for in an iPhone replacement

Moving platforms is the moment your files are most at risk. A good iOS vault should give you:

1. Import from Photos and Files, so files you moved from Android can come in either way.
2. A named cipher and on-device encryption, not only renamed files.
3. A backup you own, with a clear restore path to the next phone. See our guide to moving a photo vault to a new iPhone.
4. Free export of everything, so the next move is easy too.
5. A recovery path that does not depend on a security question that people close to you can guess.

How to export your files from Vaulty

Vaulty’s current help center has no article on unhiding files. Its data deletion page confirms the path: “You can export these files from Vaulty and restore them to more generally viewable areas of your device, such as the built-in gallery app.” The newest step list we found is Squid Tooth’s 2014 support article, so menu names may differ in today’s app:

1. Open Vaulty and open a folder.
2. Press and hold an item to start selecting.
3. Tap the other items you want to move.
4. Tap the open lock icon to unhide the selected items.

When the files are back in the Android gallery, move them to the iPhone. Apple’s Move to iOS app transfers “camera photos and videos, photo albums, files and folders”. Then add the items to your iOS vault, check the count, and only then delete the originals.

York Vault is also on Google Play. So you can add the unhidden files to York Vault on the Android phone first. Then move the whole library to the iPhone with phone-to-phone transfer. The restore check on the iPhone shows the item count.

Two warnings from Squid Tooth’s own pages:

• Vaulty keeps hidden files in its own folder in its own format. A phone transfer copies those files, but iOS apps cannot open them. Unhide first.
• “If you delete files from Drive, even just move them to Trash, Vaulty will see them as deleted and will remove them from your device as well.” Leave your Google Drive copy alone until the move is done.

What Vaulty does well

Vaulty has kept millions of people’s files for more than a decade, and it gets several things right:

• Free backup to your own Google Drive, even on the free plan with ads. 48 of the 4 and 5 star reviews say a backup or a new phone worked.
• Files survive a reinstall. Squid Tooth keeps the data folder outside the app, so an accidental uninstall does not wipe it.
• A photo on a wrong PIN that users like. One 5 star review with 338 helpful votes says “when the wrong pin is put in it takes a picture with the selfie camera”.
• Two working disguises, a calculator and a stocks app.
• Long-term users stay. “Been using this app for more than a decade. Best app ever.” (5★, July 2025)
• Replies improved. The developer replied to 68 of 77 low-star reviews in our 2026 sample, up from 8 of 187 in 2024.

What York Vault does differently

York Vault is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad and on Google Play for Android. Plus adds the Mac app, and Pro adds the web app. Here is what it does differently:

• Import from Photos, Files and the share sheet, with Live Photos, original quality and dates kept.
• Encryption on your phone, with a separate key for each item.
• A free encrypted backup of every item to your own iCloud, or your own Google Drive on Android. Each item shows its status, and a restore check runs on a new phone.
• Phone-to-phone transfer from Android to iPhone, free, over local Wi-Fi.
• A recovery key you hold. 12 words shown once at setup. No security question and no email reset.
• A cover code and an erase code, free on every plan.
• A working calculator front and 12 or more neutral icons, free.
• No ads on any plan. York Vault does use an attribution tool to measure its own ads, and its privacy label says so.

See plans for what each plan includes, or download York Vault on the App Store or Google Play.

Other alternatives worth checking

• LockMyPix has iOS and Android versions and a backup file that moves between them.
• Keepsafe syncs one account across Android and iPhone.
• Private Photo Vault has the most ratings of any iOS vault.
• Our best photo vault apps for iPhone guide compares the field.