Limited Photo Library Access on iPhone: What Apps Can Actually See

The three access levels, explained

Here's what each access level really means, how to check or change it for any app, and where it fits if you're specifically trying to keep certain photos away from apps altogether.

Every app that wants to read your Photos library falls into one of these states, visible under Settings > Privacy & Security > Photos on your iPhone:

A fourth option, Add Photos Only, shows up for some apps: it lets the app save new images into your library without being able to view or browse anything already there.

• None. The app has no access to your Photo Library at all. It can't see thumbnails, metadata, or even how many photos you have.
• Limited Access. The app can only see the specific photos and videos you've selected, one by one or by album, through a system picker. Everything else in your library is invisible to it, according to Apple's developer documentation.
• Full Access. The app can see and read your entire Photo Library, comparable to what Full Access has always meant on iOS.

What "Limited" actually restricts

The mechanics matter more than the label. When an app is in Limited Access mode, it only receives the photos and videos you explicitly added to its selection, and Apple's engineering documentation is specific about the boundary: the app cannot see your other albums or content synced through iCloud shared albums that you haven't added to its list, though it can still read basic metadata (like whether a selected photo is marked as a favorite) on the items you did share, according to a WWDC 2020 session on handling Limited Photos Library access.

Two nuances worth knowing:

None of this is retroactive protection for photos you've already shared. If you granted an app Full Access last year and it copied files locally or uploaded them somewhere, switching that app to Limited or None today only changes what it can access going forward, not what it already has.

• If the app itself creates a new photo (for example, an app that lets you take a picture inside its own camera view), that new image is automatically added to the app's limited selection, per the same Apple developer session.
• iOS periodically nudges you to reconsider apps that still have Full Access, offering a one-tap switch to Limited, a change Apple introduced with iOS 17 according to MacRumors' walkthrough of the Photos permission settings.

How to check or change access for any app

You can review and adjust this per app at any time:

You can also manage the selection from inside many apps directly, since Apple's picker lets apps call up the same "manage selection" interface without leaving the app, per the WWDC 2020 session.

• Open Settings.
• Tap Privacy & Security, then tap Photos. This shows every app that has requested photo access and its current level.
• Tap an individual app to switch between None, Limited Access, and Full Access.
• If an app is set to Limited Access, tap Edit Selected Photos to add or remove specific images from what that app can see.

Why this differs from Apple's Hidden album

It's worth separating two different Apple privacy tools that people sometimes conflate. Limited Photo Library Access controls what *other apps* can see of your library. The Photos app's own Hidden album, a separate, built-in feature under Utilities, locks with Face ID and syncs across your devices through iCloud Photos, but it doesn't stop apps with Full Access from seeing hidden photos, since Hidden is a view inside the same library, not a separate permission boundary.

That distinction is exactly why some people move genuinely private images out of the Photos library entirely rather than relying on permission settings or the Hidden album. Apps like Secure Folder: Incogni Vault take a different approach: photos, videos, and documents you import are moved into an on-device vault locked with its own separate PIN or Face ID, outside the Photos library and outside what any other app's photo permission (Limited or Full) can ever touch, because they're no longer stored where the Photos permission system applies at all.