Do photo vault apps back up your photos?

A vault keeps your photos inside one app. If that app has no working backup, the vault is a single copy on a single phone. In our study of 836 App Store reviews of 7 vault apps, 136 reviews said photos or videos disappeared. A backup that says “done” when it is not was its own complaint. This guide sets out what each app says about its backup, from its own listing or help pages, checked on 2026-10-09.

What each app says about backup

App	Backup	Plan	Where it goes
Keepsafe	Sync of up to 200 items free, 10,000 on Premium, 100,000 on Lifetime	Free, with a limit	Keepsafe’s own cloud
Private Photo Vault	Cloud Vault, with its own password	Paid. The listing says the free version does not back up	Private Photo Vault’s cloud
LockMyPix	“Instant Cloud Backup”, plus a backup file you make by hand	Cloud is listed as Premium. The file is not	Your own Google Drive or iCloud
Calculator Lock	“iCloud Backup and Google Drive Backup”	Not stated in the listing	Your own iCloud or Google Drive
NQ Vault	“Vault can back up all your photos & videos on Cloud”	Not stated in the listing	Not stated
SPV	The listing warns that deleting the app deletes your data	Not stated in the listing	Not stated
Vaultaire	Encrypted iCloud backup “included with both Free and Pro and is on by default”	Free	Your own iCloud
York Vault	Every item, encrypted	Free	Your own iCloud on iPhone, your own Google Drive on Android

The catches to look for

Item limits. Keepsafe’s Basic plan syncs 200 items. Its help center also says that when Premium ends, “only 200 items will remain backed up”, and that synced items in Trash “continue to count against your cloud quota”. A library of 3,000 photos on the free plan is mostly not backed up.

Separate passwords. Private Photo Vault’s listing says Cloud Vault needs a Cloud Vault Password, and “if you forget your Cloud Vault Password, you will also not be able to view your Cloud Vault data”.

Platform lock-in. LockMyPix uses Google Drive on Android and iCloud on iPhone. For a move between the two, it says to use a backup file instead.

The same account. LockMyPix says to restore with the same Google account or Apple Account, and the same vault password. A cloud backup in an account you no longer use is lost to you.

Is a vault in your iCloud device backup?

Apple says iCloud Backup “includes app data for the apps that you’ve downloaded on your device”, unless an app stores its data in iCloud Drive. So some vault files may sit in your iPhone’s backup. That does not mean they will open on a new phone. Whether a restored copy opens depends on where the app keeps its keys, and some keep them only on the old device. Our guide to moving a vault to a new iPhone covers that trap.

How to check your own vault today

1. Open the app’s backup screen and find the count of items backed up against the total.
2. Look for items marked as not backed up.
3. Check your plan’s item limit, and whether Trash counts against it.
4. Make an offline backup file too, if the app offers one, and keep it off the phone.
5. Test a restore on a spare device before you need it.

If the app shows no count, treat the backup as unproven.

How York Vault backs up

York Vault encrypts each item on your phone, then backs up every item, with no item limit on the backup. On iPhone and iPad it goes to your own iCloud. On Android it goes to a hidden app folder in your own Google Drive. It costs nothing on any plan, because the storage is yours. Every item shows its backup state, and the backup screen gives a count, such as 1,204 of 1,204 items. A restore check confirms that items open again. If a plan ends, the backup stays. See encrypted backup, how the backup works and vault check and repair.

For a move between iPhone and Android, York Vault uses phone-to-phone transfer over local Wi-Fi or its encrypted backup file. See moving a vault from iPhone to Android. Download York Vault.