Photos, videos, Live Photos and notes.
HEIC, ProRAW, Live Photos, videos and notes sit side by side, and the built-in camera saves straight into the vault, so new shots never land in your Camera Roll.
Locked
Noxium is a private, encrypted vault for photos, videos and notes on iPhone and iPad. Draw your pattern. Everything else stays locked.
Private beta on TestFlight · 1 month of Pro free for testers
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Tap below to install the Noxium beta with Apple’s TestFlight app. We’ll send beta news to you@example.com.
Scan with your iPhone camera
Opens Noxium on the App Store
Beta open nowiOS 17 or laterNo payment details needed
Free to startNo adsNo analyticsPro from $2.99 a month
Try it. Draw any shape.
Through six or more bolts
Noxium is a private photo, video and note vault for iPhone and iPad. Everything is encrypted on your device and opens only with the pattern you draw.
The difference
Your iPhone can tuck photos into a Hidden album. Noxium seals them: every photo, video and note is encrypted on your device and opens only with your pattern.
Is the Hidden album private? →
Opens with your iPhone passcode






Locked






Decoy vaults
Set a second pattern that opens a second vault. It looks like an ordinary Noxium, with its own photos, and nothing on screen suggests anything else exists.
Noxium never shows a list of vaults. Face ID only opens your main vault, and emergency erase removes the other vaults from this iPhone while your iCloud backup can stay safe.
What is a decoy vault? →Your pattern









1,284 items
Library
Your other pattern
Weekend groceries
Note







212 items
Library
How the lock works
No accounts to break into, no jargon to trust. Three things happen, all of them on your iPhone.
Twenty-five bolts, any shape through six or more. Face ID can open your main vault too.
Photos, videos and notes are encrypted before they’re saved, and stay encrypted in your iCloud backup. Names, dates and places too.
Not for someone holding your phone, and not for us. What’s stored is noise until your pattern opens it.
Your recovery phrase opens the vault instead. Write it down when you make it and keep it somewhere safe. It’s also an easy way to unlock with VoiceOver. Nobody can reset a pattern: not us, not Apple.
Example only.
Your pattern never encrypts files directly. It derives an Argon2id wrapping key that unlocks your room header, which unwraps a random 256-bit vault key, which unwraps a unique 256-bit key for every individual photo, video, thumbnail, and note.
A pattern through at least 6 of 25 bolts has far more possible combinations than a 4-digit code, and every guess is made deliberately slow.
// 1. Stretch the pattern or recovery phrase in memory
patternKey = Argon2id(
secret: canonicalBoltPath,
salt: roomHeader.salt256, // 32-byte per-room random salt
memory: 64_MiB, passes: 3
)
// 2. Unwrap the room's master key (1 header per room)
vaultKey = AES_256_GCM.open(roomHeader.sealedKey, using: patternKey)
// Wrong pattern? GCM tag fails -> 0 rooms revealed
// 3. Unwrap per-frame key & stream 1 MiB chunks
fileKey = AES_256_GCM.open(frameMeta, using: vaultKey)
chunk[i] = AES_256_GCM.open(
ciphertextChunk[i],
key: fileKey,
nonce: baseNonce ^ counter(i),
aad: "DRK1" || uint32(i) || isLastChunk
)
// Change pattern? Only roomHeader.sealedKey is re-wrapped.
Everything else
HEIC, ProRAW, Live Photos, videos and notes sit side by side, and the built-in camera saves straight into the vault, so new shots never land in your Camera Roll.
Albums, albums inside albums, and albums with their own pattern, each with your own cover photo and colour. A locked album’s cover stays plain, never a photo.
Encrypted backups to your own iCloud, on by default and free for everyone. On a new iPhone, draw your pattern and the vault restores.
Save from the share sheet in any app, or bring photos across from your library, and Noxium offers to remove the originals from your Camera Roll. Export in full quality with original dates.
Ask Siri, or add it to a Shortcut. Noxium locks immediately, just as it does when you close the app.
Share a vault with someone you trust, and keep yours in sync between iPhone and iPad. Anything deleted on another device goes to Recently Deleted first.
Vault content is hidden in the app switcher and during screen recording. With Pro, the icon can pass for a Calculator, Notes or Weather app.
Plus Recently Deleted, which keeps items for 30 days, so mistakes are easy to undo.
Privacy
No ads, no accounts, no analytics. The App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected.
Only you can see your photos
Your pattern is never saved or sent anywhere. Without it, your vault can’t be opened. Not by us, and not by Apple.
Unreadable in iCloud
Your backup is encrypted before it leaves your phone, so neither we nor Apple can look at it.
Never lose a photo
Updates, interruptions and restores are tested on real libraries. A built-in check can look over every photo and fix problems from your backup.
Easy to get photos out
Save thousands of photos, or whole albums, back to Photos or Files in one go. Full quality, original dates, no paywall.
Backups that really restore
Your vault is backed up to your own iCloud, encrypted. Get a new iPhone, draw your pattern, and everything comes back.
Fair pricing
150 photos and 10 videos free, with no ads. If you ever stop paying for Pro, you can still view, export and back up everything.
Fast, even with big libraries
Videos are encrypted in small chunks, so even long 4K videos start playing without decrypting the whole file first.
What Noxium protects
Your photos stay private if someone picks up your unlocked iPhone, looks through its files, or gets hold of your iCloud data. A decoy vault helps if someone asks you to open the app.
Good to know
Someone who watches you draw your pattern could copy it, so draw it out of sight. Face ID opens your main vault, so if that worries you, turn it off and use your pattern.
Open to review
We plan to have the encryption code independently reviewed at version 1.0.
Made by Inertia Projects
A small independent studio making private, easy-to-use apps for iPhone. No investors, no trackers, and no servers holding your files. business@inertiaprojects.info · More about who makes Noxium →
Noxium 1.0 is brand new, so there are no reviews to point to yet. Here is exactly what it does, with nothing rounded up. The same list is on our About page.
Compared
How Noxium lines up against five popular alternatives, using each app’s own website, help pages and App Store listing as of October 2026. Every ✗ links to its source.
| Feature | Noxium | Apple Hidden Album | Keepsafe | Private Photo Vault | Vaultaire | Encamera |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Its own lock Separate from your iPhone passcode | ✓ 25-dot pattern | ✗ Uses your iPhone’s Face ID, Touch ID or passcode1 | ✓ App PIN3 | ✓ PIN or pattern6 | ✓ Pattern7 | ✓ App PIN or Face ID10 |
| Encrypts your photos Inside the app, not just hidden | ✓ Yes | ~ Hidden in Photos, no separate vault1 | ✓ AES-2563 | — Not documented | ✓ AES-256-GCM7 | ✓ On your device, core code open source9 |
| No account or email Works straight away | ✓ Never asks for email | ✓ Built into iOS | ✗ Signs you in with an email account4 | — Not documented | ✓ No account7 | — Not documented |
| Decoy vault A second code opens a different vault | ✓ 1 on the free plan, unlimited on Pro | ✗ Not offered1 | ~ Premium only (fake PIN)5 | ✓ Decoy password6 | — Not documented | — Not documented |
| Emergency erase A special code removes your real vault | ✓ Pro | ✗ Not offered1 | — Not documented | — Not documented | ✓ Pro (duress pattern)8 | — Not documented |
| Backup Where your copy lives | ✓ Your own iCloud, encrypted, on the free plan | ~ iCloud Photos, end-to-end only with Advanced Data Protection2 | ~ Keepsafe’s own cloud, first 200 items free3 | — Not documented | ✓ Encrypted iCloud, Free and Pro11 | ✓ Your own iCloud10 |
✓ yes · ~ partly, or only on a paid plan · ✗ no · — we couldn’t confirm it from the app’s own website, help pages or App Store listing.
Head to head
As of October 2026, based on each app’s own website, help pages and App Store listing.
Free and built in. Since iOS 16 the Hidden album locks with Face ID, Touch ID or your iPhone passcode, so anyone who knows your passcode can open it.1
Encrypts files with AES-256 and offers a fake PIN on Premium. You sign in with an email account, and backups go to Keepsafe’s own cloud, with the free plan covering your first 200 items.3, 4, 5
Locks with a PIN or pattern, has a decoy password that opens a fake vault, and takes a photo of anyone who enters the wrong code.6
Also pattern-locked, with AES-256-GCM encryption, no account, and encrypted iCloud backup on Free and Pro. Pro adds a duress pattern that permanently deletes the vault.7, 8, 11
Encrypts photos and videos on your device and keeps them on your iPhone or in your own iCloud. Its core encryption code is open source on GitHub, so anyone can check it.9, 10
Apps change. If anything here is out of date, email business@inertiaprojects.info and we’ll fix it. App names are trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify their apps.
Pricing
For the photos that matter most
Free
For everything you keep
$19.99 a year, with a 1-week free trial
or $2.99 a month, or $44.99 once
Your photos are never held hostage. If Pro ends, you keep full access to view, export and back up everything already in your vault.
Questions
Anything else? Write to business@inertiaprojects.info. A person replies.
Noxium is an iPhone and iPad app that keeps your private photos, videos and notes in a locked vault. You open it by drawing a pattern on a grid of 25 dots. Everything inside is encrypted, so without your pattern it can’t be read. You can also set up a second pattern that opens a separate decoy vault.
Nobody can reset it, not us and not Apple. That’s what keeps your vault private. You save a recovery phrase when you set up Noxium. If you forget your pattern, tap “Forgot your pattern?” on the lock screen and enter it. You can make a new phrase any time in Settings › Recovery phrase, and the old one stops working. If you lose both your pattern and your phrase, your photos can’t be recovered.
No. Everything is encrypted on your iPhone before it’s backed up, so iCloud only ever stores scrambled data. Neither Apple nor we ever have your pattern.
No. Noxium works straight away with no sign-up and no email. Backups go to the iCloud you already have.
Never. Noxium keeps your originals at full quality, including Live Photos, RAW photos and 4K video. Dates, names and locations are kept too, and come back with your photos when you export them.
Sign in to the same Apple Account on your new iPhone, install Noxium, and draw your pattern on the “Restore your vault” screen. Small previews appear first so you can browse right away, and full-size photos keep downloading in the background. Decoy vaults stay in iCloud until you draw their pattern.
Yes. You can make albums, put albums inside albums, and pick a cover photo and colour for each. With Noxium Pro, an album can also have its own pattern.
No. Face ID is optional and only ever opens your main vault. Other vaults always need their own pattern, so Face ID never hints that they exist.
You can still view, play, export and back up everything already in your vault, for good. We never lock your photos behind a paywall. Only Pro features, and adding more than the free plan’s 150 photos and 10 videos, stop.
Select as many photos as you like, or a whole album, tap Export, and choose Save to Photos or Save to Files. They keep their full quality and the date they were taken.
No ads and no tracking. Noxium has no analytics of its own. Apple only sends us crash reports if you’ve turned that on in your iPhone’s settings, and they never include your photos.
Yes. Noxium was called Darkroom until October 2026. Only the name changed: the app, your pattern and your vault are the same. It is not related to the Darkroom photo editor by Bergen Co.
Noxium for iPhone and iPad. Free to start.
Scan with your iPhone camera
Opens Noxium on the App Store