Private Photo Vault vs Keepsafe, which is better?

Side by side

Which one suits you

Private Photo Vault suits people who want a vault with no account, many tools in one app and a one-time upgrade, and who will pay for Cloud Vault or back up by computer. Keepsafe suits people who want a small free cloud backup and sync across iPhone and Android, and who accept an email account, ads on Basic and a paid decoy.

Private Photo Vault and Keepsafe are the two oldest photo vaults on the App Store. They arrived in 2011 and 2012, and both have hundreds of thousands of ratings. Both also run on the same model: a free tier with ads, and a paid tier with backup and extras. The differences sit in the account, the backup and what you pay for.

How each app locks your photos

Both apps open with a code of their own, separate from your iPhone passcode.

Private Photo Vault offers a PIN, a password or a pattern, per its features page. It can also require Face ID and the PIN together, so Face ID alone does not open the vault. A Location Based Lock blocks the vault outside places you choose.

Keepsafe offers a PIN or a pattern, with Face ID or Touch ID on top. After too many wrong PINs in a row, Keepsafe blocks further tries for a short time, per its support page.

Both apps let you put a separate password on single albums. Keepsafe sells Album Lock as a Premium feature on its Google Play listing.

What happens if you forget the code

This is where the two apps differ most.

Keepsafe resets the PIN by email. You tap Forgot PIN, and Keepsafe sends an access code to every verified email on the account. For security, it waits 5 minutes before it sends the email. The trade-off: anyone who can open your email can also reset your PIN, after that wait.

Private Photo Vault uses a recovery email too, but only if you set one up at the start. Its FAQ says you enter the app password wrong 8 times in a row to start recovery. Without a recovery email, nobody can recover the password. The Cloud Vault password is a separate secret, and nobody can recover it, the team included.

Backup and moving to a new iPhone

Keepsafe backs up to its own cloud, which it calls Private Cloud. Basic, the free tier, backs up the first 200 items. Premium raises that to 10,000. On a new phone you log in with your email and the backup downloads. Keepsafe’s own support page warns: “If you ever lose your device without backing up, your photos and videos will be gone forever.”

Private Photo Vault keeps files on the iPhone. Its App Store page says plainly that “the free version of the app does not backup your files to Cloud Vault.” Cloud Vault is a Premium feature that encrypts files on the iPhone, with a key from your Cloud Vault password, before upload. Without it, the FAQ suggests a computer backup of the whole iPhone. It also warns that some customers had problems restoring vault data from iCloud device backups. The FAQ also says that when Premium expires and you switch to Basic, “your Cloud Backup will be deleted.”

If a new phone is in your future, read our guide on moving a photo vault to a new iPhone before you pick.

Decoy codes and break-in photos

Both apps have a second code that opens a harmless decoy vault, and both can photograph a person who types the wrong code.

• Private Photo Vault lists a Decoy Password and a Break-in Report with a photo and GPS on its App Store page.
• Keepsafe sells Fake PIN and Break-In Alerts as Premium features.

Ads, tracking and privacy labels

Both free tiers show ads. Keepsafe’s App Store page says “Keepsafe Basic is ad supported”. Private Photo Vault sells a one-time Remove Ads purchase.

On the App Store privacy labels, checked October 2, 2026, both apps list Usage Data under “Data Used to Track You”. Private Photo Vault’s label also lists data linked to you, including purchase history, identifiers and “Photos or Videos” under App Functionality. Keepsafe’s label lists usage and advertising data as not linked to you.

Neither label means a company looks at your photos. Both companies say their teams cannot view vault content. A label tells you what the app sends for ads and analytics, which is a fair thing to weigh in a privacy app.

Price

Both App Store pages list many price points, because each app sells older plans next to current ones. As of October 2, 2026, in the US:

• Private Photo Vault: Premium at $6.99 or $12.99 a month, $35.99 or $39.99 a year, and a one-time “Private Photo Vault Upgrade” at $39.99.
• Keepsafe: Premium at $9.99 or $12.99 a month and $23.99 or $35.99 a year, plus older monthly plans at $4.99 and $5.99.

Keepsafe’s US page lists no lifetime plan among its in-app purchases. Private Photo Vault’s one-time Upgrade is the only purchase of the two that does not renew.

What App Store reviews say

We read a sample of App Store reviews for both apps: 495 for Keepsafe and 100 for Private Photo Vault.

• Keepsafe: 111 of 495 reviews report lost photos. 113 describe a vault that crashes or will not open, often after an update. One reviewer wrote: “The first time I actually needed to restore my photos, I discovered that all of my pictures were gone.” 24 Keepsafe reviews praise years of reliable use or a clean move to a new phone.
• Private Photo Vault: 73 of 100 reviews give 5 stars. 9 report lost photos, most after a new phone, a reinstall or a lockout. A long-time user wrote: “Never has let me down. On 4th phone with app.”

Keepsafe’s sample leans negative because half of it comes from Apple’s “most helpful” sort, which lifts long 1-star reviews. Its store average is 4.75. Read these counts as a list of what can go wrong, not as a failure rate.

Which one to choose

Pick Private Photo Vault if you want no account, many tools in one app (browser, editor, Wi-Fi transfer, location lock) and a one-time upgrade. Plan your backup before you rely on it.

Pick Keepsafe if you want a free cloud backup of a small library and sync across iPhone and Android. You also accept an email account and a PIN reset by email.

Whichever you choose, export a full copy of your items before a big update or a phone change. Our Keepsafe alternative and Private Photo Vault alternative pages cover how to export from each app. For a wider list, see the best photo vault apps for iPhone.

A third option: York Vault

York Vault is our own vault app for iPhone, iPad and Android, on the App Store and Google Play. Plus adds a Mac app, and Pro adds a web app. It has a 12-word recovery key instead of an email reset. Its free encrypted backup goes to your own iCloud, or to Google Drive on Android. Download York Vault on the App Store or Google Play.