At HashPhotos, your privacy comes first. Here's how we handle your data:

HashPhotos does not process anything on the server or transmit any user photo/video data or related data to the server.

System Photo Library

HashPhotos only uses Apple's official APIs. Your photos remain in the iOS Photos app or iCloud Photos, exactly as Apple designed.

Local Photo Library

Photos are stored only inside the app's sandbox on your device. They are never uploaded to external servers. If you delete the app, those photos are deleted too.

App Data (Albums, Keywords, Captions, etc.)

On iOS 27 or later, keywords, captions, and ratings in the System Library are stored by iOS and shared with Apple Photos. Other HashPhotos management data (such as events and smart albums) is stored locally in the app's sandbox and never shared outside your device.

On iOS 26 and earlier, keywords, memos, and ratings are also stored in the HashPhotos sandbox.

Optional Sync Features

Manual sync is available via your own iCloud Drive or Dropbox accounts. HashPhotos never uses third-party servers.

Analytics and Error Reporting

To analyze errors and user usage patterns, only feature usage logs and error information are sent to Google Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics in a way that does not identify users.

In short: HashPhotos never sends your photos or data to our servers. Everything stays fully under your control.

If you lose your passcode, recovery or reset is not possible because HashPhotos is not a membership-based service.

The System Library is a library managed by the iOS Photos app, and HashPhotos also manages albums and photos in the system library through the functions provided by iOS.

The Local Library is a library managed by HashPhotos, and the photos in this library are stored within the HashPhotos app and cannot be accessed by external apps.

If you delete the HashPhotos app, all photos in your local library will also be deleted.

Photos and video files in the Local Library are stored within the HashPhotos app sandbox, along with HashPhotos-only data such as events and smart albums. These are stored only on the user’s device, and they will be deleted if the app is uninstalled.

On iOS 27 or later, keywords, captions, ratings, location, date/time, and titles added to photos in the System Library are stored by iOS and remain even if HashPhotos is deleted.

On iOS 26 and earlier, keywords, memos, and ratings are managed by HashPhotos and will be deleted along with the app. Location, date/time, and titles in the System Library are stored by iOS and remain.

On iOS 27 or later, keywords, captions, and ratings in the System Library sync through iCloud Photos. You do not need to sync them separately in HashPhotos.
Timeline events and smart albums still use HashPhotos Sync.

On iOS 26 and earlier, keywords, memos, and ratings are HashPhotos-only. If you use iCloud Photos, sync them with HashPhotos Sync. See also how keywords work with Apple Photos.

On iOS 27 or later, keywords in the System Library are stored by iOS and shared with Apple Photos. HashPhotos also writes keywords into IPTC when sharing, transferring, or exporting photos.
(Including or excluding keywords when sharing or transferring can be set in HashPhotos Settings > Privacy.)
Writing keywords into IPTC on every edit would be inefficient, and iOS limits how apps can rewrite files.

On iOS 26 and earlier, HashPhotos stores keywords in its own database and writes them to IPTC when sharing, transferring, or exporting. See also how keywords work with Apple Photos.

On iOS 27 or later, HashPhotos uses the keyword, caption, and rating features provided by iOS. Keywords you add in the System Library are the same keywords used by Apple Photos, and they sync across devices when you use iCloud Photos. There is no separate System Keyword and HashPhotos Keyword.

On iOS 26 and earlier, HashPhotos Keywords and System Keywords are separate. Turn on Settings > Data > Keyword > Auto-Update System Keywords, or use Import/Update System Keywords, so keywords can be searched in Apple Photos. See the Keywords in Apple Photos guide.

Syncing albums and photos in the local library to multiple devices is not supported.

You can install and use the iPad version on Mac computers using M series chips.
However, since it is not yet a version that properly supports macOS, some features may not operate smoothly.
We are currently focusing on the iPhone and iPad versions, but we plan to pay more attention to the macOS version in the future.

iOS is preventing third-party apps from accessing the "Recently Deleted Items" album.

A zip file created using the "Backup" function can only be used when restoring with the restore function. The zip file contains data structured for HashPhotos use and is not intended for users to extract and use directly.
A password is set to prevent users from decompressing the file.
If you want to back up your albums and photos, please use the Export Album feature.

When searching for duplicate photos, scanning all images would take a significant amount of time, so HashPhotos groups images by their creation time and then searches for duplicates within those groups. Therefore, even if two images are identical, they may not be detected as duplicates if their creation times are significantly different.
To address this, HashPhotos includes an additional step to compare images with the same resolution. However, photos with common resolutions are often excluded to avoid comparing too many images at once.

Photos in the Local Library are stored in the HashPhotos app's sandbox storage, which is inaccessible to other apps. Because they are stored in the app's sandbox, if the app is deleted, all photos in the Local Library will be deleted as well and cannot be recovered. (It is highly recommended to back up photos stored in the Local Library elsewhere.)

These photos are only stored on the device where the app is installed and are not uploaded to any server or cloud. Synchronization with other devices is not supported for the Local Library.

When switching to a new device, photos in the Local Library can be preserved if you use the iPhone's full backup/restore feature or the data transfer function supported by iOS when setting up a new phone. These methods restore all app data, including photos in the Local Library, to the new device exactly as they were on the old device.

On iOS 27 or later, keywords, captions, and ratings in the System Library are stored by iOS. If you use iCloud Photos, they appear on the new device after photos finish syncing. You do not need HashPhotos Sync for those fields.
HashPhotos-only data such as events and smart albums is preserved if you use the iPhone’s full backup/restore or the iOS data transfer when setting up a new phone. Otherwise use HashPhotos Sync.

On iOS 26 and earlier, keywords, memos, and ratings are stored by HashPhotos. They are preserved with a full device backup/restore. If you re-download photos from iCloud, photo IDs may change and the connection to that information can break. Run Settings > Data > Advanced > Check Data on the old device before switching, and Fix Data on the new device after iCloud Photos finishes syncing.

iOS doesn't replace the original when you edit a photo; it has two versions: the original and the modified version. So it takes up almost twice as much storage space.

When you edit a photo in iOS, it saves both the original and the edited version, which takes up more storage space. Additionally, for operations that only require metadata changes, iOS constraints necessitate saving not just the modified metadata but the entire image again.

While the differences might be imperceptible in most cases, formats like JPEG that use compression could potentially experience slight changes if re-compressed. To prevent this and to avoid duplicating storage, HashPhotos saves a new image with only the metadata changes and deletes the original.

This approach ensures that your edits are applied efficiently without unnecessarily increasing storage usage or risking unintended changes to image quality.

Unfortunately, iOS restricts access to the People album for third-party apps like HashPhotos. Due to this limitation, we are unable to provide this feature in our app.

According to Instagram(Meta)'s policy, downloading images and videos from Instagram is not allowed. If you download images/videos from Instagram, your Instagram account may be disabled. Please understand that HashPhotos follows Instagram's policy.

HashPhotos supports Family Sharing for all licenses. However, sometimes the App Store may not deliver the shared purchase information correctly.

Steps to check:

1. Make sure the family member's App Store account is part of your iCloud Family Sharing group.
2. Verify that Purchase Sharing is enabled. See Apple's guide here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108774

On the family member's device:

1. Open HashPhotos > Settings > Upgrade to Pro > tap Restore Purchase.
2. If it says there is nothing to restore, log out of the App Store, restart the device, log back in, and try Restore Purchase again.

If the issue persists:

• Check if a History button appears in the top-left after trying to restore. If yes, tap it and send us(support@hashphotos.app) the details shown.
• If the History screen says "No purchase history", it means no purchase information (including Family Sharing data) is being sent by the App Store.
  In that case, HashPhotos cannot verify the purchase. Please contact Apple Support for assistance.

This issue occurs when deleting photos from the System Photo Library: HashPhotos sends a delete request to iOS and waits for a response, but iOS does not respond, causing the loading indicator to remain.
This behavior is due to a problem on iOS itself, not within HashPhotos, and unfortunately cannot be fixed by HashPhotos.
As a temporary workaround, please restart your iOS device and try again.
The default Photos app handles this differently from third-party apps, so the same issue does not occur.

We have reported this issue to Apple, but we cannot know when it will be resolved.