How do you hide a video on iPhone?

Videos hide the same way as photos in iOS. The difference is what happens next. Videos are large, Notes will not lock them, and vault apps struggle with them more than with photos. This guide covers the built-in steps first, then what to test before you trust any app with your videos. We checked Apple’s steps against its iOS 27 guide on 2026-10-02. They are the same in iOS 18 and later.

Hide a video in Photos

1. Open the Photos app on your iPhone.
2. Open the video you want to hide. To hide many, tap Select, then tap each video.
3. Tap the More button, then tap Hide. The videos move to the Hidden collection.
4. Go to Settings, tap Apps, then tap Photos. Make sure Use Face ID (or Use Touch ID or Use Passcode) is on.

Step 4 is on by default since iOS 16. To also take the Hidden album out of view, turn off Show Hidden Album on the same screen. Hidden videos then do not show anywhere in Photos until you turn the switch back on.

To play a hidden video, open Collections, tap Hidden below Utilities, tap View Album, and unlock. To unhide it, open the video, tap the More button, then tap Unhide.

For a second lock, lock the whole Photos app. Touch and hold the Photos icon, then tap Require Face ID. Our guide to locking photos on iPhone covers that lock and its limits.

Hidden videos on iPad and Mac

With iCloud Photos on, Apple says a video you hide on one device is hidden on your other devices too. So the steps above also take the video out of view on your iPad and Mac.

Each device has its own view of the Hidden album:

• iPad. The album sits under Utilities. You might need to tap the sidebar button first. It opens with Face ID or Touch ID.
• Mac. The Hidden album is off by default. Choose View, then Show Hidden Photo Album, and unlock with Touch ID or your login password. To hide a video on a Mac, Control-click it and choose Hide Photo, or press Command-L.
• iCloud.com. Select Hidden in the sidebar, then Show Hidden Photos. Anyone who can sign in to your Apple Account can do this.

Is the Hidden album private enough for video?

It keeps videos out of casual view. It has two gaps. First, the device passcode opens it, so a person who knows your passcode can watch your hidden videos. Second, iCloud protection depends on a setting. Under standard data protection, Apple holds the keys to iCloud Photos. With Advanced Data Protection on, Photos is end-to-end encrypted and Apple does not hold those keys. If either gap matters to you, read on.

Why video is harder to keep private

Three facts make video different from photos on iPhone.

Notes cannot lock it. A locked note is the only built-in place where photos can sit behind a custom password. Apple does not let you lock a note with a video attachment. So for video, the built-in choice is the Hidden album and its passcode lock, nothing else. Our guide to password protecting photos explains the Notes method for photos.

Video is large. Hiding a video does not change its size. It still uses the same storage on your iPhone, and in iCloud if iCloud Photos is on. With Optimize iPhone Storage on, Apple keeps the full-size original in iCloud and a smaller version on the iPhone. A hidden video follows the same rule as any other.

Copies spread. A video you sent or received in Messages or a chat app has its own copy there. Hiding the copy in Photos does not hide the others. A video you send also carries the place it was recorded and the phone model. Our free video metadata remover shows those details and removes them in your browser.

What to test before you trust a vault app with video

Video is where vault apps break most. In our study of 836 App Store reviews of 7 vault apps, 48 reviews described video problems. The counts below come from that study.

Problem in reviews	Reviews
Playback fails or waits on a download	17
Long or large videos fail to import or upload	13
No scrubbing, so you watch from the start	10
No sound	2

Read these counts with care. Keepsafe has the largest sample, 495 of the 836 reviews and 39 of the 48 video reviews. Apps with fewer reviews show fewer complaints, which does not prove they handle video better.

One cause shows up in the apps’ own text. Keepsafe and Private Photo Vault both offer Space Saver, which keeps originals in their cloud. Private Photo Vault’s text says videos “are completely offloaded from your device and played from Cloud Vault on demand.” Playback then needs a download. A slow or failed download means no video. One Keepsafe user wrote that only about 5 of 200 videos would play. The rest showed “Downloading Original” and never loaded (5 stars, 2026-09).

Before you move videos into any app, run these tests with one real file:

• A long video. Add your longest video, over 10 minutes if you have one. Check that it finishes and plays.
• Scrub and sound. Drag through the timeline. Check that sound plays.
• Offline. Turn on Airplane Mode, then play the video from the app.
• Live Photos. Add a Live Photo, then export it back to Photos. One LockMyPix review says the app “Imports and exports Live Photos as videos”. Keepsafe’s own text warns that “Live photos will convert to static images”.
• Export. Export the video back to Photos. Check that the length, quality and sound match the original.
• Restore. Find out how the app backs up video, and whether a backup on the free plan includes it.

Our best photo vault apps guide scores 8 apps on backup and reliability, using the same review study.

Record straight into a vault

The cleanest way to keep a video out of Photos is to never save it there. No copy lands in your library, so no copy lands in Recently Deleted either. Some vault apps include a camera that saves straight into the app. A Private Photo Vault user described the benefit in a 5-star review (2022-10): “taking a photo directly from app saves it straight to the app, bypassing Photos and its deleted folder”.

If you record with the iPhone Camera app instead, the video goes into Photos first. After you move it into a vault, delete the original. It then sits in Recently Deleted for 30 days. Our Recently Deleted guide shows how to empty it.

What York Vault does

York Vault is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad and on Google Play for Android. Plus adds a Mac app, and Pro adds a web app. It:

• Plays video from the encrypted file on your iPhone. The player has a scrub bar, sound, landscape and swipe to the next video, and it never waits on a download. See Live Photos and video.
• Keeps the original file, byte for byte, in its original format. Live Photos keep both parts, in and out.
• Records photos and video up to 4K straight into the app, with nothing saved to Photos. See private camera.
• Backs up every item, video included, encrypted, to your own iCloud, or Google Drive on Android. See encrypted backup.
• Trims and mutes video for free, saved as a new version. With Plus or Pro, it also plays MKV, AVI and WebM files in the app.

Large video backups use your iCloud storage. If your iCloud is full, York Vault shows which items are only on your iPhone. With Pro, York Cloud can store the encrypted backup instead, and we hold no key to it.