Hide Photos, Video and App Loc

Review by eFreeware

Most of us have something on our phones we would rather not have a friend, a family member or a curious coworker stumble across while flipping through the gallery. The usual answer is a folder with an obvious name, or a lock screen that protects everything but nothing in particular. Hide It Pro takes a different route: it hides photos, videos, music, apps and notes behind a disguise, so the content is not simply locked but invisible.

The app comes from Goaffpro and is free to download. It has been on Google Play since October 2014, and the numbers suggest it has found a wide audience: over 50 million installs and a 4.7 average from more than 1.2 million ratings. That kind of figure usually means an app has settled into a clear purpose rather than chasing trends, and Hide It Pro's purpose is narrow and specific.

The core idea is that the app appears in your app drawer as an Audio Manager, complete with volume controls that work like a normal audio tool. The real vault opens only after a long press on the Audio Manager title. The developer describes this as the app's secret vault, and it is the detail that separates Hide It Pro from a standard file locker.

A vault built for shared phones

The people who get the most from this app are those who hand their phone to someone else regularly. If you share a device with a partner, lend it to a child for a game, or pass it around at a gathering, a hidden vault means the private material never appears in the gallery in the first place. The disguise matters as much as the lock: an app called Audio Manager raises far fewer questions than one called Private Vault.

It also suits anyone who keeps sensitive documents or personal videos on a phone that others occasionally use. The built-in encryption tool is there for files that need more than a lock screen, and the ability to hide apps as well as media extends the idea beyond photos. Anyone who wants one private space for several kinds of content gets an unusually broad feature list.

What I would not read into it is a replacement for a system-wide security setup. Hide It Pro is a place to put things you want out of sight, not a tool for managing your whole phone's privacy. The developer's own framing is about sharing a phone without worrying about privacy, and that is the scenario the app is built around.

Hiding media and organizing it

Photos and videos are the starting point. You move them into the vault, where they disappear from the regular gallery, and you can sort them into hidden folders of your own choosing rather than dumping everything into one pile. The developer mentions moving data between albums, batch deleting, sorting files and folders, and unhiding items when you want them back in the open.

The gallery inside the vault is not just a list. It includes a slideshow mode and sharing to services such as WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook, so hidden media can still be sent to other people without first restoring it to the main gallery. The developer also mentions custom slideshows, which suggests you can shape how a set of images plays rather than accepting one fixed presentation.

Videos play inside the app, with VLC, MPlayerX and similar tools supported. That is a useful detail for anyone who keeps video files in formats the default Android player handles poorly, since it means the vault does not force you into a single playback engine. Music files can be hidden as well, which fits the audio-manager disguise neatly.

Locks, disguises and the escape route

Access to the vault can be protected with a PIN, a password or a pattern, and there is fingerprint unlock for phones that support it. Multiple lock options matter more than they might seem: a pattern is quick for daily use, while a longer password is better for a vault holding documents you would not want guessed. The choice is yours rather than fixed by the app.

The feature I find most telling is the escape PIN or password. The developer includes it for moments when someone catches you entering the vault, letting you open a harmless view instead of the real contents. It is a small addition, but it shows the app was designed around the awkward situations that come with hiding things on a shared device.

The disguise itself is configurable to a degree. Audio Manager is the default front, and other covers such as a Calculator are available. You can also hide the app's icon from the app drawer entirely, and the app is designed to stay out of the recent apps list. Between the cover, the hidden icon and the lack of a recent-apps trace, the aim is to leave as little visible evidence as possible.

Beyond photos: messages, calls and browsing

The features go beyond storing media. Secret chatting, private messaging and calls, private browsing, and locking individual apps are all included. These turn the vault into something closer to a private workspace than a simple media locker, covering conversations and browsing history as well as files.

That breadth is where the app becomes harder to summarize. Someone who only wants photos out of the gallery may never touch the messaging or browsing side, while someone dealing with a shared phone may find those parts more valuable than the media vault itself. It is worth deciding which of these you actually need before installing, because the app offers a lot of surface area.

Cloud backup is free, which addresses the obvious risk of keeping the only copy of an important file inside a hidden folder. If a phone is lost or reset, a backup of the vault's contents is the difference between an inconvenience and a real loss. It is a free part of the app rather than an extra.

What it costs and what comes with it

Hide It Pro is free to download. The app contains ads and offers in-app purchases. What those purchases cover is not set out, so I would treat them as an unknown until you see them for yourself.

Hiding photos and videos is free and unlimited. If a particular feature matters to you, it is worth confirming before you rely on it.

The presence of ads in an app whose whole point is privacy is worth thinking about. Ads are normal in free software. Anyone uncomfortable with advertising inside a private vault should weigh that against the convenience of not paying for the app.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is with the private folder features that some phones and gallery apps already include. Those are free, built in and require no extra install, but they are also visible as a locked album in the gallery, which is exactly the trace Hide It Pro is designed to avoid. If the goal is simply to keep photos away from casual swipes, the built-in option may be enough.

A second alternative is a dedicated encryption or file-vault tool. Those tend to focus on securing files rather than disguising an app, and they rarely offer the media gallery, video player and sharing options that Hide It Pro bundles together. The trade-off runs the other way too: a focused security tool is easier to reason about than a broad app that also handles messaging and browsing.

The third option is a cloud storage service with a locked folder. That moves the files off the phone entirely, which is a different kind of protection, but it works differently from a local vault. Hide It Pro's appeal is that the content stays on the device and stays out of sight, with cloud backup as a supplement rather than the main event.

A narrow tool that does its job for the right user

Hide It Pro is not trying to be a general-purpose security suite, and it should not be judged as one. For someone who shares a phone and wants a private space that does not announce itself, that combination is hard to match.

The caveats are real but manageable. The app contains ads and in-app purchases, the developer's claim of unlimited free hiding is marketing rather than a specification, and the breadth of features means you will likely use only part of what is installed. None of that undermines the core idea, but it does mean the app rewards a clear sense of what you want from it.

My recommendation is straightforward: install it if you regularly hand your phone to other people and want private media kept out of the gallery, especially if the disguise is the part that appeals to you. If your needs are limited to a locked album, your phone's own tools will do the job with less to think about.