Privacy guides

View or hide the Hidden album on Mac

If you use iCloud Photos, your Hidden album follows you to your Mac. Here's where it is, how it's locked, and how to keep it out of sight on a shared computer.

Updated 1 November 20262 min readBy the VaultBolt team

Short answerIn Photos on Mac, choose View → Show Hidden Photo Album, then click Hidden in the sidebar under Utilities. It's locked with Touch ID or your login password on recent macOS. Choose View → Hide Hidden Photo Album to remove it from the sidebar.

Show and open it

Open Photos on your Mac.
Choose View → Show Hidden Photo Album.
Click Hidden in the sidebar and authenticate.

Hide it again

View → Hide Hidden Photo Album.

Shared Mac?

If others use your Mac account, anyone who knows your login password can open Hidden. Give each person their own macOS user account, or keep private photos in a vault on your iPhone instead of the shared library.

Frequently asked questions

Why do my iPhone hidden photos appear on my Mac?

With iCloud Photos on, the whole library, including Hidden, syncs to every device signed in to your Apple Account.

Sources

Apple: Set up and use iCloud Photos

VaultBolt team
We build an encrypted photo vault for iPhone and iPad. We check Apple instructions against current Apple Support documentation and update guides when iOS changes.

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