How to restrict library access to your Photos on iPhone and iPad

Learn how to increase your privacy and security by restricting selected apps from having full permission to access your photo library.

Photos Restrict Library Access iPad

Your photos contain data, and it may be data that you don’t want to share. This can include details like location, the date & time it was taken, and other metadata. So if you allow apps to access Photos, like a social media or chat communication app, they could have access to details about the photo that you prefer they didn’t.

Thankfully, you have the ability to restrict photos from being used by third-party apps. If you’re ready to put some limitations on your pictures and videos, here’s how to restrict library access to other apps in Photos.

Limit an iOS app from accessing your photo library

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad
  2. Scroll down and tap Privacy & Security.
  3. Choose Photos from the list.
  4. You’ll see a list of apps that have access to your Photos library. Tap each one and select None, Add Photos Only, Limited Access, or Full Access.
  5. If you pick Limited Access, you’ll receive a popup window where you can choose the photos individually, from within an album, or via the search tool.
  6. Tap Done when you finish selecting the photos.
Limit photo access for an app on iPhone

You can also edit these photo selections later if you choose. Head back to the same area in Settings > Privacy & Security > Photos, pick the app and tap Edit Selected Photos. From there, you can select more photos or deselect those you’ve chosen.

When you finish, tap the arrow on the top left to go back or simply close Settings.

Choose when you open an app for the first time

After you download and open an app, it will show you a popup alert asking for your permission to access your photos. From this popup, you can pick Don’t Allow or Limit Access and then choose the pictures and videos you want that app to have access to.

Limit photo access for a newly downloaded app on iPhone

Having the ability to restrict access to selected items in your Photos library is a good privacy enhancement. It would be nice to see this feature improved even further, where you can select entire albums if you like.

What do you think of this Privacy feature? Are you going to take the time to limit library access for Photos on your device? Let us know!

On the same note: