How to stop photos from Messages showing up in your iPhone Photos app

Shared with You is an iOS feature that collects things people send you in Messages, such as links, music and photos, and shows them in the matching app. For photos, that means a Shared with You section in Photos: open the For You tab and scroll down.

Only content from people saved in your Contacts is shown there. Apple's documentation also says photos and videos shared with you in Messages are automatically saved to your photo library while the Photos switch is on. That is how a picture from a friend or a screenshot of a document can end up next to your own photos, in Recents, or in the pictures you show someone.

1. 1Open Settings and tap Apps, then Messages. On older iOS versions, tap Messages directly in Settings.
2. 2Tap Shared with You.
3. 3Turn off the switch next to Photos.

You can instead turn off Automatic Sharing at the top of that screen, which switches Shared with You off for every app at once. Messages itself is not affected: the photos still arrive and stay in the chat.

If most people are fine but one chat sends things you do not want in Photos:

1. 1Open the conversation in Messages and tap the contact or group name at the top.
2. 2Tap Info if it is shown.
3. 3Turn off Show in Shared with You.

Content from that conversation then stops appearing in Shared with You in all apps, not only Photos. You need to do it for each conversation.

Turning the switch off does not remove photos that were already added to your library. To clean up:

1. 1In Photos, find the pictures. Recents lists them newest first.
2. 2Select them and tap the bin icon, then confirm.
3. 3Open Albums, then Recently Deleted, and delete them there too. Until you do, they stay for up to 30 days. See how to permanently delete photos on iPhone.

Deleting the copy in Photos does not delete the picture in the Messages conversation, and it does not delete the sender's copy. If you use iCloud Photos, the deletion also applies on your other devices.

If these photos already appeared in Memories or Featured Photos, see how to stop unwanted photos from showing up in Memories. Saving from another app has its own switch; for WhatsApp, see how to stop WhatsApp saving photos to your camera roll.

Some photos people send you are worth keeping, such as a scan of a contract, an ID or a receipt, but you may not want them in the Photos library. Lockboxy is a private, encrypted vault for iPhone built for that.

1. 1In Messages, open the photo and tap the Share button.
2. 2Choose Lockboxy in the share sheet. It copies the photo into the app.
3. 3Open Lockboxy and unlock it with its passcode. The shared photos are added to your vault then.
4. 4The photo stays in the Messages conversation until you delete it there. Delete it too if you do not want a copy left behind.

Photos in Lockboxy are encrypted with AES-256 on your device, and they never appear in the Photos app. There is no account and no server holding a copy.

• The switches only control what Shared with You shows and saves. The photos still live in the Messages conversation and count toward its storage until you delete them there.
• If you tap Save on a photo yourself, it goes into your library regardless of these settings.
• Nothing here deletes other people's copies of a photo.
• Apple can change menu names and behaviour between iOS versions, so if a step does not match your screen, search Settings for Shared with You.
• The vault key in Lockboxy comes from your passcode. If you forget it, nobody, including us, can open the vault, unless you made a Recovery Key (Premium) beforehand.
• The free plan has room for up to 30 photos or videos and 10 files. The price of Premium is shown in the app before you buy; see the Premium page.