Your photos,
encrypted on your phone.
Velum is an encrypted vault for your private photos, videos and files. Everything is encrypted with AES-256 before it is stored, with a key that comes from the pattern you draw. Your vault never leaves your phone unless you back it up yourself, and then it leaves encrypted.
Features
Encryption you can check
Real encryption
Every photo, video, thumbnail and file name is encrypted on your phone with AES-256-GCM (Google Tink) before anything is stored. Not hidden in a folder, not renamed. The key comes from the pattern you draw, stretched with Argon2id so guessing it is slow, together with a key held in your phone's hardware.
What others see
Pick any photo and Velum shows it next to the same file as it is stored on your phone: random noise, no name, no type. File managers, backups and gallery apps only ever get the noise.
Checked before anything is deleted
Every import is decrypted back and checked against the original before Velum offers to remove the original from your gallery. Removal goes through Android's own confirmation, so nothing is deleted behind your back.
Each pattern, its own vault
Draw a pattern and Velum opens the vault it belongs to. With Pro, add more vaults, each with its own pattern and its own recovery phrase. No list of vaults exists anywhere in the app.
Duress pattern
With Pro. A pattern for when you are forced. It opens one vault as usual and quietly removes the keys to every other vault on the phone. You set it up yourself, it is described here, and it cannot be undone.
9 word recovery phrase
Nine words open your vault if you forget your pattern or change phones. Velum never keeps a copy and cannot show them again, so write them down on paper.
Free encrypted backup
Back up to a folder you choose: on your phone, a memory card, a USB drive, or Google Drive and other cloud apps that offer folders. What is copied is already encrypted. Restore on a new phone with your pattern or your phrase.
Private camera
Photos and videos go straight into the vault and never touch your gallery.
Encrypted notes
With Pro. Notes kept in the vault, encrypted like everything else in it.
Albums, viewer and trash
Albums, favorites, date sections and drag to select. A PDF viewer and a video player that never posts a notification. Deleted items wait in the trash first.
Out of sight
Screenshots are blocked and Velum is hidden in the recent apps view. It locks the moment you leave, or after a delay you choose. Shake the phone or lay it face down to lock. Location is removed from anything you share.
Disguise
With Pro. Show a Calculator, Notes or Weather icon on your home screen instead of Velum's. The calculator works like a real one: type your code and press = to reach the pattern screen. Settings, Apps and the share menu still show the name Velum, and no app can change that.
How it works
Your photos never get stuck
Your pattern is turned into a key with Argon2id and combined with a key your phone keeps in its hardware. That key encrypts every photo, video, thumbnail and file name before it is written. There is no account and no server holding your files, so there is nothing to sign in to and nothing we could open.
A vault you cannot get out of is not safe either. Opening, exporting, sharing, the trash and backup stay free forever, above the free limit or not. If you forget your pattern, your 9 word phrase opens the vault. If you change phones, restore your backup with your pattern or your phrase.
Honest limits
What Velum cannot do
- Velum cannot remove copies a cloud backup such as Google Photos already made before you imported a photo.
- It cannot protect a phone that is unlocked and handed to someone with the vault open.
- Hidden vaults are not listed anywhere, but anyone who knows Velum exists knows hidden vaults can exist.
Velum protects what is in it. The disguise changes the icon on your home screen, but Settings, Apps and the share menu still show the name Velum.
Pricing
Velum Pro
Free: up to 250 items in a vault, the private camera, encrypted backup, the recovery phrase, export and everything that keeps your files safe. Pro removes the limit and adds more vaults, the duress pattern, the disguise and encrypted notes.
Pro
Buy once, keep it
- Paid once, no subscription
- Shared with your Google Play family
- No ads, ever
- No account needed