The best Keepsafe alternative depends on why you’re leaving

Keepsafe is a solid, popular app, with a 4.7 rating from about 385,000 ratings on the US App Store (checked October 2026). Most people searching for an alternative aren’t running from a broken app. They have a specific complaint, and the right replacement depends on which one it is.

Why people look for a Keepsafe alternative

These are the reasons that come up most, and each one is something Keepsafe’s own pages confirm:

• The account. Keepsafe signs you in with an email code, and its help center recommends adding a backup email because losing access to your email can mean losing the account. For a privacy app, some people would rather have no identity attached at all.
• Ads on the free plan. Keepsafe Basic is ad supported, and ads go away with Premium, according to its App Store listing.
• Tracking. The same listing’s privacy label shows Usage Data under "Data Used to Track You".
• The 200-photo limit. The free plan holds 200 photos, per Keepsafe’s products page. Premium raises it to 10,000.
• Your photos on their cloud. Keepsafe’s Private Cloud is encrypted (AES-256, per its products page), but your vault still lives on a company’s servers, tied to that account.
• Price. Premium is a subscription. The US App Store lists Keepsafe’s in-app purchases between $4.99 and $35.99 (checked October 2026); check the listing for the current plans in your country.

If none of these bother you, Keepsafe may still be the right app. If one does, use it to filter the options below.

What to look for in a replacement

Whichever app you choose, check these five things on its own pages before moving your photos:

1. Real encryption, described specifically. A named algorithm (such as AES-256) and how the key is made from your passcode. "Bank-level security" with no detail tells you nothing.
2. No account, or an account you’re fine with. No account means no email to lose and no login database to leak, but also nobody who can reset your vault for you.
3. A backup you understand. A vault with no backup is a vault you’ll eventually lose with your phone. Know where the backup goes and what opens it.
4. A way out. Can you move to a new phone, or to the other platform, without starting over?
5. What the free plan really costs. Ads, tracking, limits, or a trial that turns into a subscription.

Our 10-point secure vault checklist goes deeper on each.

Keepsafe alternatives at a glance

Sources are linked in each section below. All checked October 2026.

1. Umbra: no account, no ads, keys only on your phone

Umbra is our app, so weigh this section accordingly. It’s built for the people who leave Keepsafe over the account and the ads.

• No account, email or sign-up, and no analytics or advertising SDKs. The only outside code handles purchases and never sees your vault.
• No ads on any plan, including free.
• Encryption you can check: every item is encrypted with AES-256-GCM under its own key. Your pattern (6+ dots on a 5x5 grid) is stretched with Argon2id and mixed with a secret that never leaves the phone (iOS Keychain or Android Keystore), so files copied off the phone can’t be guessed at elsewhere. Details on our homepage.
• Backups included free: on iPhone and iPad an end-to-end encrypted iCloud backup is on by default for new vaults; on any phone you can export an encrypted backup file. Backups move between iPhone and Android in both directions and open only with your recovery phrase.
• A decoy that does more than Keepsafe’s Fake PIN: the duress pattern (Pro) opens a decoy vault and at the same moment removes the way into every other vault on the phone.
• Free plan: up to 3 vaults, 100 photos and 10 videos in total, unlimited notes and documents.
• Pro: $14.99 a year with a 7-day free trial, $1.99 a week, or $39.99 once for life.

Where it’s weaker than Keepsafe: the free photo allowance is smaller (100 against 200), there’s no company cloud that restores your vault from a login, and if you lose both your pattern and your recovery phrase, nobody can open the vault, including us. Sync between devices (Pro) works on iPhone and iPad only for now. The full side-by-side is in Umbra vs Keepsafe.

2. Private Photo Vault: long track record, no account to start

Private Photo Vault says on its homepage that it needs no account and works offline by default, which already fixes the biggest Keepsafe complaint. It encrypts files on the device, has a vault PIN separate from your phone passcode, and offers an optional Face ID plus PIN requirement.

The catches: the free version shows ads, backups come with Premium through Cloud Vault, and Cloud Vault needs an account. Its decoy password is listed as a Premium feature on Google Play. More in Umbra vs Private Photo Vault.

3. Vaultaire: on-device and no sign-in, iOS only

Vaultaire is an on-device vault with no sign-in, unlocked with a pattern on a 5x5 grid. Its free plan covers 3 vaults, 100 photos and 10 videos, Pro adds a duress mode, iPhone and iPad sync and custom icons, while sharing and encrypted iCloud backup are included free, per its homepage. Two things to know: it’s iOS only (iPhone, plus iPad through Pro sync), so it’s not an option if you use Android or might switch, and its security page says analytics (PostHog) are on by default. See Umbra vs Vaultaire.

4. The iPhone Hidden album: free and good enough for a lot of people

If you mostly want certain photos off your main grid when you hand your phone to someone, you may not need a vault app at all. Since iOS 16 the Hidden album is locked with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode, and you can remove it from the Photos app entirely. Apple explains it in its guides to hiding photos and the locked Hidden album.

The limit: anyone who knows your iPhone passcode can open it, and there’s no decoy. Our Hidden album comparison covers when that matters.

5. Google Photos Locked Folder: the built-in option on Android

Locked Folder keeps photos out of your grid, search and other apps. Google’s help page is clear on the two trade-offs: the Locked Folder password is the same as your screen lock and can’t be changed to a different one, and items you don’t back up are deleted if you uninstall Photos, clear its data or factory reset. Turn on Locked Folder backup if you use it. Our Android hiding guide walks through the setup.

6. Samsung Secure Folder: its own lock, Samsung only

On Galaxy phones, Secure Folder is a separate locked space with its own PIN, password or pattern, which makes it stronger than Locked Folder against someone who knows your screen lock. But Samsung now says Secure Folder data backup is no longer available, and it doesn’t exist on other phones. Plan how you’d get your photos out before you rely on it.

How to switch from Keepsafe without losing photos

Don’t delete Keepsafe until your photos are safely in the new place. The order matters.

1. Make sure everything is on the phone. If you turned on Keepsafe’s Space Saver, which per its App Store listing compresses photos and keeps the originals in its cloud, the full-quality originals may only be in Private Cloud. Open each album and let it finish loading before you export.
2. Export from Keepsafe. Per Keepsafe’s export instructions: open an album, select the items, tap the send icon, then choose Export to Camera Roll on iPhone or Export to Gallery on Android. Exported photos keep their original dates, so look for them by when they were taken, not at the bottom of your gallery.
3. Import into the new app. In Umbra, tap import, choose the photos, and accept the offer to delete the originals from your library.
4. Check the count. Compare the number of items in the new vault with what Keepsafe showed. Open a few videos to make sure they play.
5. Empty Recently Deleted. On iPhone, photos deleted from the library sit in Photos' Recently Deleted album for up to 30 days. Empty it so the exported copies are really gone. Google Photos and Samsung Gallery have a similar trash.
6. Set up a backup in the new app before anything else, and save the recovery phrase off the phone.
7. Cancel Premium, then delete Keepsafe. Deleting the app doesn’t cancel a subscription. Cancel it in your App Store or Google Play subscriptions, and check whether Keepsafe offers to delete your account and cloud data.

When to stay with Keepsafe

Be honest with yourself about what you’d give up:

• You want your vault to reappear after signing in on a new phone, on either platform, without thinking about backup files or recovery phrases. Keepsafe’s Private Cloud does that well (per its App Store listing), though only items synced to the cloud come back.
• You need more than 100 free photos and don’t mind ads.
• You like a 30-day trial before paying, which Keepsafe lists on its products page.

Questions

Checked against public pages on 20 October 2026. Details change, so check the linked pages before you decide. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.