Last updated 21 October 2026
XGallery privacy policy
XGallery keeps your photos and videos on your phone, encrypted. We never see them, and neither does anyone else. The free version shows ads from Google, and this page explains what that involves.
What we collect
Nothing. XGallery has no account, and no analytics or crash reporting of its own. We never see your photos, videos or settings, and nothing in your vault is ever sent anywhere.
Ads in the free version
The free version shows banner ads and the occasional full-screen ad from Google AdMob. Ads are never shown over your photos or videos, on the lock screen, or in the calculator disguise.
- The ads aren't personalised: they aren't chosen from your interests or what you do in other apps.
- To show ads, limit how often you see the same one and stop ad fraud, Google's ad code still collects some information about your phone: things like the advertising ID, your IP address (which gives a rough location) and how you interact with the ads. It never gets anything from your vault.
- Where the law requires it, for example in the European Economic Area and the UK, XGallery asks for your consent first. You can change your choice in Settings.
How Google uses this information: policies.google.com. With Premium, there are no ads: XGallery never starts Google's ad code and never asks for ad consent.
Purchases
XGallery Premium is a one-off purchase made through Google Play. Google handles the payment, and we never see your payment details. XGallery only asks Google Play whether you own Premium.
If Premium ends (for example after a refund), nothing is deleted. Extra profiles still open and their files can still be viewed and exported, but you can't add new ones. Break-in alerts stop taking photos, and the photos already taken stay until you delete them. Themes and the app icon go back to the default; a disguise you set stays as it is.
What stays on your phone
- The photos and videos you import, their thumbnails, and the vault's index. All of it is encrypted, in storage that only XGallery can read.
- Your settings, such as auto-lock and the disguise you picked. These aren't encrypted, but they don't include your photos or your recovery passphrase.
- While a file is being imported, a temporary copy sits in the app's own cache for a moment. It's deleted once the file is encrypted.
Your recovery passphrase is never stored. XGallery keeps only what it needs to check it.
What XGallery asks for
- Internet access and network state, used only to show ads in the free version and to check your Premium purchase with Google Play.
- Advertising ID, read by Google's ad code in the free version only. Ad requests are non-personalised, and you can reset or delete the ID in Android's settings.
- Google Play billing, to buy Premium and check that you own it.
- Fingerprint (biometrics), if you choose to unlock with it. Your fingerprint stays with Android; XGallery only learns whether it matched.
- Camera, only if you turn on break-in alerts (Premium). After a failed unlock attempt, XGallery takes one front-camera photo and keeps it encrypted in the vault. You see these photos only after a real unlock, and turning the feature off deletes them all.
- Notifications and running in the background, to show progress and keep going while files are imported or a backup is saved or restored.
- Storage, on Android 9 and older only, to save exported files. On these versions XGallery can't delete the originals after import; it tells you, so you can delete them yourself.
On Android 10 and newer, you pick files with Android's own photo picker, and Android asks you before an original is deleted.
Backups and moving phones
XGallery is left out of Android's backups, and the vault's keys are tied to your phone. There is no cloud copy, and uninstalling the app deletes the vault for good.
With Premium, you can save the vault you're in (your main vault or another profile) as one encrypted backup file, protected by a backup password you choose, and keep it wherever you like. We never receive it. If you forget the backup password, nobody can open the file. A backup never includes or mentions your decoy vault, and it can only be restored into an empty vault: a new install, or a new empty profile.
To keep a single photo outside the vault, export it: it's saved to your Pictures or Movies folder and removed from the vault.
If you lose access
If you forget your recovery passphrase and lose your phone's screen lock, nobody can open the vault, including us. That's what keeps it private.
Children
XGallery isn't made for children, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone.
Changes
If a later version changes any of this, we'll update this page and its date before that version comes out.
Contact
XGallery is made by Menzy Dillon trading as MENZEEKO, in Melbourne, Australia.
Questions about privacy: menzy@menzeeko.com.