Keepsafe is the most-downloaded name in photo vaults and a reasonable app. It also embodies three decisions that a privacy tool arguably should not make: it asks for your email before it does anything, it uploads your photos to its own servers, and it collects usage data.

None of those is a bug. They are the business model. If you would rather not be in that model, here is the alternative.

No account

Hushfold has no sign-up screen. You set a master password, optionally a PIN and Face ID, and you are in. There is no email to give, no profile to maintain, no “forgot password” link — because there is no server to send one.

Your iCloud, not ours

Backup is optional and off by default. When you turn it on, encrypted copies go into your own private iCloud database, inside your Apple account, using your iCloud storage. We charge nothing for it because it costs us nothing. On a new iPhone, the same Apple ID plus your password brings the vault back. The last five versions of the vault index are kept, so a bad sync cannot overwrite the only copy.

Nothing collected

Apple’s privacy label for Hushfold is “Data Not Collected”, literally: no analytics SDK, no ad SDK, no device identifier sent anywhere, no notifications framework in the binary. A build-time check fails the build if any of them ever appears.

Pay yearly or once, and it never gates your photos

Free for 150 photos and 15 videos. Unlimited removes the cap: $24.99 a year with a 7-day free trial, or $34.99 once, for good. Viewing, exporting and deleting are never restricted — including items you added before you hit the cap.

Moving from Keepsafe

Export your photos from Keepsafe to the camera roll, import them into Hushfold, and turn on “Remove originals”. Then export the Hushfold vault to one encrypted file and put it somewhere safe. That file opens on any iPhone with your password, whether or not you ever pay.