Photo Lock : Password Protect / Hide Pictures & Videos on Windows Phone
This post is inspired from couple of emails I receive on protecting images and videos which are personal on Windows Phone. Though Windows Phone does come with a central locking system but either most of the users don’t use it or rather they just want protection for all their personal stuff.
So in this post we are featuring Photo Lock App after evaluating couple of apps both free and paid. The primary reason this app makes a difference is that its feature rich and yet its free and possibly with future updates few missing feature might just go away.
How it Works ?
In brief, this app lets you copy your photos from photo library inside the app into an album which you name and since the app itself is password protected which makes sure nobody else can access. Next it gives you access to camera to record videos and photos which stays inside the app so nobody else will ever know if you have a media file there.
The Account used for managing the account is registered along with an email id. So in case you forgot your admin password, an email is sent to you with a new password.
Known Limitations :
First you need to make sure for existing pictures and videos is to delete them from the photo library as Windows Phone OS does not allow the app to do it and second existing videos cannot be imported.
Features :
- Multiple account management : So if you want somebody to see picture from your private photos. You can always set which album the account has access to and he or she will not see anything else.
- Password Protection where the first account acts as admin. Interesting is login screen identifies the user based on password and you cannot create two account with same password
- Auto Lock if left idle for sometime.
- You can create any number of albums and import pictures. It allows multiple photo selection while importing.
- You can Manage Albums i.e. Edit, Delete and create
- You can copy Pictures into multiple albums., useful when it comes to sharing between multiple accounts.
- Option to set sorting of albums by date, name or photo count.
- Quick Access button for Video Recording or taking a photo
- You can bulk export images from app to library
- Bookmark or Favorite Images.
Updated in V 1.2 :
- Integrated with Picture HUB i.e. You can import pictures to photo lock right from the hub itself.
- All Imported pictures are now stored in Default Album
- Import Albums stored inside other albums.
Suggestions for enhancing the app :
- Skydrive / Dropbox integration is required because if somebody uninstalls the app, all the photos and videos will be lost. Also the integration should have a complete sync.
- Rights Management for Multiple Accounts. As of now any account can delete pictures or videos which they can access.
- Support to Pin Albums to Start Menu
- Pin Camera to Start Menu that should work via the app. This way I don’t have to launch the app and then choose camera.
- Use random image stored in the albums as background.
- Share to Twitter / Facebook
- Slideshow for image viewing.
I had a word with developer of the app and they said that they have plans for Skydrive /Dropbox / Google Docs Integration but that might take sometime, as of now they are working on improvements to make the app fast and fluid. Also there is another update rolling in next 3 days so keep an eye.
Screenshot :
[minigallery id=”3350″ style=”box border box_white”]
Video :
Download :
