A Complete Guide to Using Photo Privacy Options on iPhone

Apple recently introduced the highly anticipated iOS 14 for iPhones with various privacy features. Some made headlines by catching notorious apps collecting data in the background for no apparent reason. One such feature is the Photos library privacy options. You now have more control over which photos are shared.

The beta version of iOS 14 is available for testing on iPhones, which is a great way to discover new features. However, keep in mind that beta versions are often unstable and full of bugs that can break certain critical functions on your iPhone. According to Apple’s annual update release cycle, you can expect the final version of iOS 14 to be released around September.

When that comes, we’re taking a closer look at the privacy features set for the Photos app for iPhones to arrive.

Let’s start.

How Photos App Permissions Work in General

Different types of apps require access to your photos for various reasons. These can be social media apps like Instagram, image transfer apps like Feem, and messaging apps like WhatsApp. You got the picture.

Photos app is gallery and storage app. When you allow an app to access your Photos library, it can access all photos, regardless of which one you want to share or upload. Until recently it was an all-or-nothing situation where you had little control over the outcome.

Apple has redesigned the way photos/images are shared with iOS 14. You can now choose to allow limited or restricted access to third-party apps. That way, they can only access images you allow and make other images protected and secure. These apps cannot access, view or share these photos without your express permission. It should have always been like this.

Things still work the same way in the Android world, where even apps that have nothing to do with images can sometimes access them. I believe Google will follow suit soon. Apple wants to change all this and more with iOS 14, which comes with many other privacy features that we will explore in the coming days.

Photos Privacy Options on iPhone

Open Settings and tap on Privacy. Find and open Photos here.

You will see a list of all the apps that have access to the Photos app. Select any of them to explore and control the privacy options.

Let’s open WhatsApp. There are three options.

• Selected Photos: Only photos you allow the app to access will be allowed
• All Photos: The app has permission to access all the photos in the Photos app.
• None: The app does not have permission to access any photos

The first time you open an app that needs access to your photos, you’ll see a popup like this. The app you’ll see below is Feem, which I use to quickly transfer screenshots from iPhone to desktop.

Ideally, I would recommend tapping Select Photos here and choosing which photos/images the app can access. If you fully trust the developer and know what you’re doing, go for Allow Access to All Photos. Tap on Don’t Allow if you think the app has no business to meddle in your images or if it doesn’t need to perform its advertised functions. You can always change these settings as we saw above under Settings > Privacy.

You will see a new popup where you can select more photos from the app by tapping the Selected Photos option. Marked photos will have blue ticks. Tap on Done to save the settings.

You will see a popup asking you to change the current Photos privacy settings or change it the next time you open the app. You Can Keep Current Selection or Select More Photos. If you want to allow the app to access more photos, you can go back to Privacy Settings and tap Edit Selected Photos. You will see the familiar pop-up window where you can easily select or deselect photos from the list.

Note: Are you using the Albums feature in the Photos app? Currently, there is no way to allow an app to access an album. Selecting an album opens it and you have to select images as usual. Maybe in a future update.

Privacy is a Fundamental Right

With iOS 14, managing the privacy of images and videos in the Photos app should be easy. Settings are easier to find and understand. It’s always good to not have too many options. Maybe that’s why they have so few iPhone/iPad models at any one time.

You don’t want bad apps to access your private and personal moments. Fortunately, iOS 14 should include minimal measures to protect your images and videos. These new restricted Photos privacy settings make it extremely simple to prevent our memories from being made public and distributed online without your consent and knowledge.

I hope other platforms like Android and even Windows will offer better privacy features in the future.

Next: Are you using Apple Photos as your default image gallery? Click the link below to learn more about 9 great Photography tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your photos.