Secure Camera

Review by eFreeware

Secure Camera is a free Android camera app from GrapheneOS. It handles the three things most people reach for a camera app to do: stills, video and QR or barcode scanning, and it adds a set of optional shooting modes on hardware that supports them. The reason to consider it is the stance it takes on your files. Metadata is stripped from captured images by default, and the app asks for very little in the way of permissions.

Secure Camera inverts that assumption and makes you opt in if you want the details kept. For anyone who shares photos publicly, sells items online, or simply dislikes the idea of a picture carrying a record of where and how it was taken, that default is the whole point.

It has been installed more than 10 million times and holds a 4.0 average from 17,022 ratings. Those numbers suggest a mature, widely used app rather than a niche experiment, though the rating also hints that not every user gets exactly what they expect from it.

A camera for people who would rather not share more than the picture

The clearest audience here is anyone who wants a competent everyday camera without handing over more than necessary. The app requires only the camera permission to take stills. Media is written through the Media Store API, so storage permissions aren't part of the deal, and the microphone is only needed when you record video with audio included. Location permission comes into play only if you deliberately switch on location tagging, which is described as experimental.

That makes it a reasonable fit for people who photograph documents, receipts, whiteboards or listings, and for anyone who posts images to public forums or marketplaces. It also suits users who simply want a camera that behaves predictably and doesn't nag them for access it doesn't need.

The QR side widens the appeal. A dedicated scanner that only looks inside a marked square, supports inverted codes and refreshes its focus every couple of seconds is useful for anyone who deals with codes regularly: event check-ins, package labels, restaurant menus, or the growing number of codes printed on equipment and signage. If scanning codes is a repeated task rather than a rarity, having it built into the camera app saves reaching for something else.

Still and video capture, with a familiar button layout

Modes sit as tabs along the bottom of the screen, and you can move between them either by tapping a tab or by swiping left or right anywhere on the display. The arrow at the top opens a settings panel, which closes when you tap outside it or swipe up; a downward swipe opens it instead. Outside the scanning mode, a row of large buttons sits above the tabs: camera switching on the left, capture or record in the middle, gallery on the right.

The volume keys double as a shutter button, which is handy when you're holding the phone at an awkward angle or want to avoid shaking it as you press. While a video is recording, the gallery button turns into a still-capture button, so you can pull a photo out of a take without stopping it. Captured media lands in an in-app gallery with a video player built in; the edit action hands off to an external editor rather than doing the work itself.

Focus and exposure follow a sensible pattern. By default the app meters the whole scene with continuous autofocus, auto exposure and auto white balance. Tapping a point switches all three to that location, and after a timeout set in the settings it returns to the default behavior. A slider on the left lets you tune exposure manually, and the app adjusts shutter speed, aperture and ISO to match. The developer notes that deeper tuning options are planned.

Vendor modes and zoom that follows the lens

Beyond the core modes, Secure Camera exposes additional shooting modes that come from CameraX vendor extensions where the device supports them: Portrait, HDR, Night, Face Retouch and Auto. These are hardware-dependent, so what you see depends on your phone rather than on the app alone. On a device that offers them, they cover the common situations where a plain capture isn't enough, such as low light or a portrait with background blur.

Zoom is handled more thoughtfully than in many camera apps. On Pixels and other supported devices, pinching or moving the zoom slider switches between the telephoto and wide angle lenses instead of just cropping the image digitally. The developer says this will become more broadly supported over time, which is a fair way of saying the experience varies by handset today.

The practical result is an app that covers the basics well and borrows the best of what your phone's camera stack can do, without asking you to accept the data practices that often come bundled with manufacturer software.

The QR scanner is the part worth trying first

Scanning gets its own mode and its own rules. It reads only within the square marked on screen, so you line the code up with the edges rather than hoping the app finds it somewhere in the frame. Any 90-degree orientation works, and inverted codes, the kind that trip up simpler scanners, are fully supported.

Zoom works here too, and a torch button at the bottom center helps in dim rooms. By default the scanner looks for QR codes only, on the grounds that this gives quick and reliable results; other barcode types tend to produce false positives. You can enable all supported types with the auto toggle at the bottom left, or pick specific ones from the menu at the top. The developer is upfront that each additional type slows scanning down and raises the chance of a misread, particularly with dense codes.

That trade-off is worth understanding before you change anything. If you scan QR codes almost exclusively, leaving the defaults alone gives you the fastest behavior. If you regularly encounter product barcodes or other formats, enabling them is a deliberate choice with a cost attached.

Metadata, permissions and what the defaults actually do

The privacy design is the app's defining feature, and it's worth being precise about it. Images are stripped of EXIF metadata by default, leaving only orientation. That last part isn't an oversight: orientation is visible from how the picture is displayed anyway, and the app needs it to show the image correctly. Everything else, including timestamps, phone model and exposure settings, is removed unless you turn stripping off in the More Settings menu inside the settings dialog.

Video is a different story. Stripping metadata from video is planned but not supported yet, so clips retain what they carry. That's a real gap if video is your main medium, and it's the kind of limitation that matters more than any interface quibble. Location tagging is off by default and, when you enable it, is deliberately not stripped.

The permission model follows the same logic. Camera access is the only requirement for stills. Storage permissions aren't needed because media goes through the Media Store API. Microphone access is required for video with sound, and can be avoided by recording without audio. Location is only requested if you turn on the experimental tagging feature.

Free, with nothing to buy and nothing to watch

Secure Camera costs nothing. It contains no advertising, and there are no in-app purchases to consider. That means no banners interrupting a shot, no upsell to a premium tier, and no subscription to keep track of. What you install is what you get.

For a privacy-focused app, that's a coherent position: there's no obvious incentive to collect or monetize anything, because there's no monetization at all. It also removes the usual dilemma of deciding whether a paid upgrade is worth it, since there isn't one.

An update in August 2026 suggests the app is still being maintained. Whether that pace continues is something only time will tell, but the current state is a complete, free tool with no strings attached.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is the camera app that came with your phone. Manufacturer apps tend to be tightly integrated with the hardware, offer more modes out of the box, and often produce heavily processed images tuned to that specific sensor.

A second alternative is a dedicated QR scanner. Folding scanning into the camera app, with a scanner that handles inverted codes and refreshes its focus automatically, is a tidier arrangement for anyone who scans regularly.

The third comparison is a full manual camera app, the kind aimed at people who want control over every parameter. Secure Camera offers exposure compensation and tap-to-focus with a timeout, and the developer says more tuning is coming, but it isn't trying to be a manual photography tool. If your priority is granular control over every setting, that's a different category of app. If your priority is a dependable camera that doesn't ask for much and doesn't leave traces in your files, this one is built for exactly that.

A camera for people who want the photo and nothing else

Secure Camera is a well-considered default camera for Android, and its strongest argument is the one it makes quietly: images leave the app without the metadata that usually tags along. Combined with a permission list that stops at the camera for stills, that makes it an easy recommendation for anyone who photographs documents, sells things online, or simply prefers not to broadcast more than the picture itself.

The QR scanner is the feature I'd expect to win over people who hadn't thought about their camera app at all. The default of QR-only scanning is a sensible starting point, with other barcode types available when you need them.

The caveats are worth weighing. Video metadata isn't stripped yet, the extra shooting modes depend on your device's vendor extensions, and zoom behavior varies by handset. None of those undermine the core proposition, but they set expectations. If you shoot mainly video and care about what's embedded in it, this isn't the finished article. For stills and scanning, it's a capable, free app with no ads and no purchases, and the 4.0 average across 17,022 ratings suggests a lot of people have found it good enough to keep.

What's new in version 93

See https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Camera/releases/tag/93 for the full release notes.