How do you get your photos out of Keepsafe and move to York Vault?

Keepsafe runs on iPhone and Android, and its help center documents the way out. This guide follows those help pages, checked on 2026-10-09, and Keepsafe version 13.33.0 on the App Store, released on 2026-09-29. If you are still deciding whether to leave, read the Keepsafe alternative page or York Vault vs Keepsafe first.

Before you start

1. Count your items. Write down the count of every album, and of the decoy vault if you use one.
2. Keep Premium for now. Keepsafe says Trash recovery is a Premium feature, and that when Premium ends, only 200 items stay backed up in its cloud. Finish the move before your plan ends.
3. Check free space on your phone. Full-size files come back from the cloud when you turn off Space Saver.
4. Use Wi-Fi and a charger. Large downloads and exports take time.

Step 1: turn off Space Saver

Keepsafe’s Space Saver keeps smaller copies on your phone and the originals in its cloud. If you export with it on, you risk exporting the small copies. Keepsafe’s steps:

• iPhone. Open Settings in the bottom left corner, tap Backup & Sync, and turn off Space Saver.
• Android. Tap the cloud icon in the bottom right corner, scroll down, turn off Space Saver, then tap Download.

Keepsafe says to stay on Wi-Fi and not to close or minimize the app until all files have downloaded.

Step 2: recover Trash

Keepsafe says items deleted from Trash “are permanently removed from our servers and can never be recovered”. Trash items you want to keep must come out first.

1. Open Settings in the bottom left corner.
2. Open Trash.
3. Select the items and tap Recover.
4. Choose an album to move them to.

Step 3: export every album

Keepsafe’s help center gives these steps, one album at a time.

iPhone:

1. Open an album.
2. Tap Select in the top right corner.
3. Choose the items.
4. Tap the send icon in the bottom left corner.
5. Tap Export to Camera Roll.

Android: open an album, select the items, tap the send icon in the bottom left corner, then tap Export to Gallery.

Work in batches if your albums are large. In the reviews we studied for our Keepsafe alternative page, one reviewer says “select all” crashes the app above a couple of hundred images.

Where exported items land

Keepsafe says exported items “will likely return to the period in time at which they were created”. So a photo from last spring shows up next to last spring’s photos, not at the end of your camera roll. Count them by album or by date, not by scrolling to the bottom.

Step 4: the decoy vault

Keepsafe’s help page on the decoy vault says you must export its items back to your device, then import them where you want them. So open the decoy vault with its PIN and repeat step 3 for each of its albums.

Step 5: check the counts

Compare what landed in Photos or your gallery with your notes. Do not delete anything in Keepsafe until every count matches.

Step 6: add the items to York Vault

In York Vault, tap Add and pick the items from Photos. York Vault reads back each encrypted copy and checks it before it offers Remove from Photos. The remove originals help page explains that check. On iPhone, Photos then keeps the removed items in Recently Deleted for 30 days. Our Recently Deleted guide shows how to empty it.

Step 7: cancel Premium, then delete Keepsafe

Keepsafe says it does not manage subscriptions, and that a subscription is “not” cancelled when you uninstall the app.

• iPhone. Open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, then find Keepsafe and cancel.
• Android. In the Play Store, tap your picture, tap Payments and subscriptions, then Subscriptions, and cancel Keepsafe.

Keepsafe says to cancel at least 48 hours before the plan renews, and that Premium stays on until the paid period ends. For the same store screens, see cancel a subscription.

On Android, Keepsafe’s help center says its files sit in a hidden folder named .keepsafe in the root folder of your storage. After you delete the app, check whether that folder is still there.

What York Vault does differently

• Free Trash recovery on every plan, for 30 days.
• No item limit on backup. Every item backs up, encrypted, to your own iCloud or Google Drive, at no cost. See import and cleanup for how the move works.
• Full-size originals. York Vault keeps the original file, with Live Photos and dates.
• Viewing, export and restore stay free if a plan ends. No ads.

York Vault is on the App Store and Google Play. Download it on the App Store or Google Play.