Which private photo album app lets you put albums inside albums?

Why album order matters in a vault

A vault holds the photos you care about most, so people sort them with care. When an app loses that order, users notice. In the 836 App Store reviews of vault apps that we read, 71 complain about organization or the viewer. 7 of them ask for folders inside folders.

The worst cases come after an update. One Keepsafe user wrote in 2025: “New update doesn’t allow you to reorganize photos at all by holding and dragging”. In LockMyPix, a 2025 review says one move took “up to 30 seconds” in nested folders.

So York Vault treats albums and order as part of the base app. Everything on this page is free, on iPhone, iPad and Android.

What York Vault does

• Unlimited albums. An album holds any item: photos, videos, documents and other files. You can make, rename, reorder and delete albums. When you delete an album, its items go to Trash for 30 days.
• Albums inside albums. There is no limit on depth or count.
• Covers. Pick any item as the cover, or pick a plain color cover that shows nothing private.
• Starter albums. During setup, you can add “IDs and cards”, “Documents”, “Private” and “Screenshots”. You can also skip them.
• Favorites. Tap the heart on any item. Each library has its own Favorites view.
• Color tags. Put a color tag on items and albums, then filter by tag. This helps when one item belongs to more than one topic.
• Rename. Rename any item or album. York Vault keeps the original file name in the item details.
• Edit dates. Change the date of one item or of many at once. York Vault keeps the original date, so you can undo the change.
• Merge. Combine 2 or more albums into one. Your manual order stays where you set one.

How do albums inside albums stay fast?

An album in York Vault is a record in an encrypted index. It is not a folder of files on disk. So when you move items, York Vault changes only the index records. The files stay where they are. That is why 1,000 items move between albums 5 levels deep in under 1 second.

Copy works the same way inside one library. Between two libraries, it works differently. You enter the code of the other library, and York Vault encrypts the items again with that library’s key. Each library has its own key, so a copy into the cover library opens there with the cover code only.

Sort, manual order and layout

You choose the sort for each album: capture date, date added, name, size, type or manual. York Vault remembers it across launches and updates. You can also keep albums above items.

Manual order is a drag. Touch and hold an item or an album, then move it. York Vault saves that order. With sync in Plus and Pro, your other devices get the same order. If you switch to date sort and back, your manual order is still there.

For layout, pinch the grid to show 3 to 9 items per row. Pick square tiles or the original shape. A list view shows names and sizes, and date headers split long albums.

Small choices stay yours too. York Vault can open to the album list or to the last album you used. Each album can start at the newest or the oldest item. York Vault has no shake to scroll, because a shake locks the app when you turn on quick exit.

Select many items at once

Drag a finger across items to select them, tap Select all, or select a range. Then move, copy, delete, export, share or tag all of them in one action. York Vault handles select all on 50,000 items without a crash. In our review study, Keepsafe users said that select all crashed the app beyond a few hundred images.

How Apple Photos compares

Apple Photos also has albums and folders. Apple’s guide says you can tap New Folder, then Add Albums, and sort albums by Custom Order. Those albums sit in your open photo library. To hide one album from other people, see how to make a secret photo album, or put an album code on it in York Vault.

How other apps do it

App	Albums and order	Where we read it
Private Photo Vault	“The free version is limited to 3 albums.” More sub albums need its Ultimate plan.	App text
Keepsafe	Custom albums. “Custom Album Covers” are in its paid list.	App Store listing
LockMyPix	“Create albums, subalbums and organize to your needs”. A manual sort warns: “Your personal sorting will be lost and cannot be restored.”	App Store listing and app text
Vaultaire	Folders inside folders and a custom order since version 1.0.18 (October 6, 2026). Before that, “Albums and folders are the individual vaults.”	App Store listing, checked 2026-10-08

We read each App Store package in September 2026 and checked the listings on 2026-10-02.

Where to go next

To bring items into your albums, read how adding and cleanup work. Your albums are part of the encrypted backup, so a restore on a new phone brings them back. To compare whole apps, see the best photo vault apps.