Anyone who's tried online dating has this recurring nightmare: you show your friend/mom/Lyft driver a nice photo on your phone -- a picture of your dog at the beach, or the overpriced avocado toast you had for brunch -- and then they start swiping. Suddenly, the nosy phone holder swipes one photo too far and BAM! They're hit with an explicit photo of your land down under.
The obvious solution would be to not send or save nudes at all, but who wants to do that? Sexting can keep a relationship hot during long distance, or if you're feeling yourself, help you stay body positive with a little nude selfie of how good you look. Online dating is difficult enough without boring, Puritanical rules putting out the spark in your love life.
Luckily, there are ways to keep your nude photos hidden from the prying eyes of your loved ones. (By the way, you should probably talk to those people about something called boundaries, but that's for another list.)
Thanks to modern technology and horny people, here are six apps you can use to hide your explicit photos.
1. Private Photo Vault
Private Photo Vault protects your hot selfies in a PIN or pattern protected folder. It also includes security features in case your phone (and precious nudes) ever get stolen, like break-in reports that will automatically take a photo of the thief and send their location via GPS.
This app is especially useful since it uses a fake password to open decoy folders -- so if you have to deal with someone poking around, they'll only see stock images.
Private Photo Vault also has in-app editing features so you can enhance the contrast and brightness of your photo before sending it off to your partner. The app also includes a private web browser so you can save online photos directly to the app.
Private Photo Vault is available on iOS and Android for free.
2. Best Secret Folder
Best Secret Folder is appealing because the app icon itself is a decoy -- it's designed to look like a utilities folder. The password-protected app also lets you record videos and save them directly to your secret folders.
If a login attempt fails more than four times, the app will snap a picture of the intruder and send their location to your email. Best Secret Folder even keeps a record of every login attempt, so you can know exactly when someone tried to get into your hidden folders.
The app doesn't even have to be for hiding scandalous photos -- as one reviewer stated, they use the app to track usernames and passwords.
Best Secret Folder is available on iOS for free.
3. Keepsafe Photo Vault
Keepsafe Photo Vault has an added layer of protection: It won't show up on your "Recently Used" apps list.
With "military grade" encryption, the app secures your photos with a PIN, pattern lock, or fingerprint. The app even locks itself when your phone faces downward, in case you need to keep anything under wraps last minute. All of your secret photos can stay safe in a private cloud, so it won't take up space on your phone.
A freemium model of Keepsafe Photo Vault is available on iOS and Google Play.
4. Secret Calculator
Secret Calculator is exactly what it sounds like -- behind a working calculator, the app can hide all of your secrets. Whether it's a photo, gif, video, or URL, this app has your back with the protection of a four-digit passcode and a decoy icon. The app also uses pattern locks and touch IDs for maximum security.
In addition to hiding your sexts in any kind of media, the app offers the option to lock individual photos and albums.
It provides the perfect privacy with passcode, double protection, decoy mode, album leve lock and photo level lock. You can even edit your private videos with the trim, crop, and slow motion functions. (For when you really want to show off, obviously.)
Secret Calculator is available for iOS for $1.99.
5. Secret Photo Album
With Secret Photo Album, you can access whatever your heart desires online without worrying about your browsing history being recorded, and you can save secret photos directly to the app. The app supports locking through passwords, patterns, PIN, and even Face ID for maximum protection.
Secret Photo Album also has a decoy feature, so if an especially nosy person wants to know what photos you're hiding, you can punch in a fake password that opens innocuous photos. Your private images will stay private.
The app also supports email and MMS -- sext right from the app!
Secret Photo Album is free on iOS.
6. Hide photos directly on your phone
OK, this isn't an app. But if you don't want to go through the hassle of a third party app, you can natively hide your racy selfies on your phone.
For Android:
To natively hide your photos on an Android device, open up your File Manager -- your device usually comes with a stock one. Add a new folder, but start the name with a period. Example: .Secrets.
When you move your photos and videos into this folder, they won't appear in your gallery or albums. You can only access them through your file manager.
For iPhone:
Hiding your photos and videos on iPhones is a little easier. Just select the photo you want to conceal, and tap "Hide" at the bottom of the screen. This will move the image to your "Hidden" folder, and it'll stay out of any Moments, Collections, or Albums.
These device-native hiding techniques aren't password protected or encrypted, though, so using them is more risky. If someone knows your phone passcode, they can still access it.
Practice safe sexting, everyone! Only do it with people you trust, and only safe screenshots if you have their consent!
Topics Apps & Software Cybersecurity
