SPV review: is SPV Secret Photo Vault safe, and is it worth paying for?

At a glance

What is SPV?

SPV is a photo vault for iPhone and iPad from Maple Labs, first released in January 2019. You import photos and videos, and the app hides them behind its own PIN. It also holds notes, a password list, hidden contacts and a private browser. The home screen name is “SPV”, and you can switch to one of 41 alternate icons.

The model is freemium. The free plan shows ads and puts limits on import, export and the browser. Premium removes the ads and the limits, opens Trash recovery and shows break-in photos.

How SPV protects your photos

SPV says it locks your data with “the PIN protection”. Its App Store page names no cipher and does not say that files are encrypted. Our read of the app package found no encryption library and no mention of encryption in its text.

Apple encrypts the app code, so we could not read all of it. That is not proof that SPV stores files in the clear. It means SPV makes no claim you can check. Face ID or Touch ID can open the vault on top of the PIN.

Lock, forgotten PIN and decoy

You set a numeric PIN. If you forget it, SPV can send a reset to a recovery email. You must add that email first. The app warns that without it, “you wont be able to access your photos.”

The Fake Passcode opens a fake gallery, and 5 reviews in our sample praise it. 4 reviews also say real content flashed on screen for a moment, at launch or on decoy exit. One wrote: “Every single album pops up for a split second without any passcode required.” We found no erase code.

Break-In Alert takes a photo after a wrong PIN. On the free plan you see only a count of attempts. Viewing the photo is Premium.

Backup and moving to a new phone

SPV’s listing is direct: “Photo Vault does not keep your photos or data on any kind of server.” It also says that deleting the app deletes your photos. The current app package holds a Google Drive backup that its settings mark as Premium only, capped at 1,000 photos. We could not read those screens, so we cannot say how it works.

On the free plan, your photos live on one phone. To move to a new phone, you export to Photos and import again.

Price and plans

Prices on the US App Store, checked October 8, 2026: 10 Premium purchases at $4.99, $4.99, $6.99, $12.99, $29.99 (4 of them), $35.99 and $39.99.

The first-run paywall shows three plans. It selects $4.99 a week with a 3-day free trial first. The others are $29.99 a year and $35.99 for lifetime. The store text speaks of a 7-day trial on the yearly plan, while the app shows 3 days. Lifetime buyers must cancel their old plan by hand.

The free plan caps use. Settings in the app package allow 50 imports, 5 exports per period, 1 browser tab and 3 bookmarks. When you hit a cap, the paywall opens.

Privacy label and ads

The free plan shows ads. SPV’s App Store privacy label lists Identifiers, Usage Data and Diagnostics under “Data Used to Track You”. Our read of the app package found Google AdMob for ads, and Adjust, AppsFlyer and the Facebook SDK for ad measurement.

None of this says that SPV looks at your photos. It says the free app runs an ad business, which is fair to weigh when you choose a privacy app.

What users report

We read 69 SPV reviews from the US and Australian App Stores, from March 2019 to August 2026. Only 3 are from 2025 or later. Read the counts as a list of what can go wrong, not as a failure rate.

• Viewer and organization: 16 reviews, such as no zoom, no landscape and videos with no sound.
• Crashes after an update: 12 reviews, most about a 2020 update.
• Lost photos: 10 reviews. One reviewer lost her daughter’s art and a late friend’s photos (1 star, April 2020).
• A name that gives it away: 9 reviews. “On the Home Screen the name is “SPV” and not “calculator” or something that’d make it believable.”
• Export caps: a user who tried to leave could take out “only about five” items. An older review says export stopped at “ten pictures without paying.”

What SPV does well

SPV packs more tools into one app than most vaults. 7 reviews praise its fast-exit features. One wrote: “i love the screen down feature where it will switch you to another app when face your screen down.” Facedown Lock jumps to Mail, Messages, Music or Safari. The fake passcode, the break-in photo, Wi-Fi transfer from a computer and a photo editor are all in the app. For people who want no cloud copy at all, a vault that keeps data only on the phone is a feature. Its 4.59 average from about 70,000 ratings shows that most people who rate it are happy.

York Vault as an alternative

York Vault is our own app, so read this part with that in mind. It names its cipher: each item is encrypted on your phone with its own key (AES-256-GCM). Backup of every item to your own iCloud, or Google Drive on Android, is free. A cover code, an erase code, wrong-code photos and a face-down exit are free too. Nothing from a library shows on screen before its key is loaded. Export and Trash recovery stay free on every plan, with no count limit. York Vault has no password list and no hidden contacts, and its private browser needs Plus.

See York Vault vs SPV for the full table, and the SPV alternative page for how to export everything first.

Download York Vault on the App Store or Google Play.

Who it fits

Side by side with York Vault, row by row: York Vault vs SPV: which photo vault should you use?