How to Lock Photos and Images on Your Mac

Private photos are the thing people most want to lock on a Mac, and the thing macOS handles worst. Your iPhone can lock the Hidden album behind Face ID. On the Mac, the same photos are a couple of clicks away for anyone using your account. Here is what actually keeps them private, depending on where the photos live.

Photos in the Photos app

The Photos app has a Hidden album. Select photos, right-click, choose Hide. They leave your library view and go into Hidden under Utilities in the sidebar.

Two things to know. First, on recent versions of macOS the Hidden album asks for Touch ID or your login password before it opens, so it is genuinely locked. Second, the album is not hidden from the Photos app itself. Anyone who opens Photos sees that a Hidden album exists, and on older systems it opens with a single click and no password. Check View, Show Hidden Photo Album to see how your Mac behaves.

If you want the whole Photos app off limits, lock the app itself. With Cloak, add Photos under Locked apps and it will not open without Touch ID or your password. Every album, hidden or not, is behind that one gate.

Image files in Finder

Screenshots, downloads, exports from a camera, scans. These are ordinary files, and Finder has no lock for them.

The old way is to gather them into a folder and turn that folder into an encrypted disk image in Disk Utility. It works and it is free, but you end up mounting and ejecting a disk to look at a picture. We cover that route step by step in how to password protect a folder on your Mac.

The simpler way is to lock the image where it sits:

1. Open Cloak and press + under Locked folders & files.
2. Pick the image, or pick the whole folder of images.

It is encrypted with AES-256 and vanishes from Finder and from Spotlight. Press Unlock, confirm with Touch ID, and it is back in place. Lock it again when you are done looking.

A whole folder is usually the better choice for photos. One vault holds hundreds of images, and you unlock once instead of once per file.

Photos that sync from your iPhone

If iCloud Photos is on, the same library is on every device signed in to your Apple ID. Hiding or locking on the Mac does not change what is on your iPhone, and the reverse is also true. Anything you lock in Finder on the Mac stays on the Mac only, which is exactly what you want for something private.

If you are trying to keep photos away from someone who shares your Apple ID, locking will not save you. They can open the library from another device. The fix there is a separate Apple ID, not a lock.

What does not work

• Renaming the file to something boring. Spotlight indexes the image content, and Quick Look shows the picture on a spacebar press.
• Putting photos in a folder called Private. Finder search finds them in a second.
• The lock checkbox in Get Info. It stops edits and deletes, not viewing.
• Hiding the file with a dot in front of the name. Command-Shift-Period shows it again.

The short version

• Photos in the Photos app: use the Hidden album, and lock the Photos app itself if you want the whole thing gated.
• Image files in Finder: lock the file or its folder in place with Touch ID and AES-256.
• Photos shared through iCloud: lock on the Mac protects the Mac only. A shared Apple ID needs a separate account.

Cloak locks the Photos app, single images, and whole folders with Touch ID, all on your Mac, with nothing sent to the cloud. One-time purchase.

Questions people ask