The private camera

Free

The private camera takes photos and videos straight into the vault that’s open. They’re encrypted as they’re written, so they never land in your camera roll or in iCloud Photos.

What it is

It’s Paperwise’s own camera, opened with Camera at the bottom of a vault (or + → Photo or video). It has:

Photo and Video modes
the switch between front and back cameras, and flash (or the torch in video)
the recording time while you film
a “Taken this session” count instead of thumbnails of earlier shots
Done to go back to the vault

What you take appears in the vault under Photos (and in All), newest first.

This is different from Photo in Home’s Add sheet, which uses the system camera, takes photos only, and saves to Home.

When to use it

Whenever a photo shouldn’t exist anywhere else: a document you’re photographing in a hurry, a private picture, a video you don’t want in iCloud Photos. If you already took it with the iPhone’s Camera app, it’s in Photos; see Move photos out of Photos.

Step by step

Take a photo or video

Open the vault (Face ID and its pattern).
Tap Camera at the bottom.
Choose Photo or Video and take your shots.
Tap Done. Your photos and videos are in the vault.

In the vault, tap the Photos chip.
Tap a photo or video to see it full screen. Swipe between them, pinch to zoom, play videos.
At the bottom:
- Share: Create share link (Pro) or Share a copy…. “A copy shared from here leaves this vault.”
- Move to album: albums live inside the vault.
- Export to Photos: puts a copy in the Photos app. That copy is no longer protected by the vault.
- Move out: moves it to Home as a file.
- Delete: asks Delete for good? first. There’s no Recently deleted in a vault.

Free and Pro

The private camera is free.

Pro: share links to vault photos and videos, and syncing vaults across your devices.

Privacy

Photos are encrypted in memory before they’re written to storage. Videos are recorded in small pieces, each encrypted as it arrives, so readable video never reaches the iPhone’s storage.
Nothing is saved to the Photos app or the camera roll, so nothing goes to iCloud Photos.
Thumbnails are decrypted in memory only, never stored readable on the iPhone.
To play a video, Paperwise decrypts it to a temporary file protected by iOS, and deletes it when you close the viewer (and again at launch, if the app was closed first).
Vault screens block screenshots and screen recording (best effort: iOS can’t stop every capture).

Tips

Want to take a photo without unlocking your iPhone? Add the Lock Screen camera. See The Lock Screen camera.
Export to Photos and Share a copy… make readable copies outside the vault. A share link (Pro) stops working after its expiry (7 days at most), though anyone who opens it can still save a copy.

What if…

What if the camera doesn’t open?

Check that Paperwise is allowed to use the camera in Settings → Paperwise, then try again. If it still doesn’t open, lock the vault and open it again.

What if a long video takes a moment to play?

Paperwise decrypts the whole video before it plays. Long videos take a little longer to start.