Keeping evidence of harassment private and safe on your iPhone

If someone is harassing you — through messages, social media, calls or in person — keeping records can feel exhausting and frightening at the same time. You may be told to “keep everything”, while also worrying that the person might see what you’re saving. This page is about doing that as safely as you can. It isn’t legal advice, and your safety comes before any of it.

If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number. Local support organisations — for domestic abuse, stalking or online harassment — can help you plan, often confidentially.

First, think about who has access to your phone

The biggest risk to your evidence is often not a stranger but someone close to you who has, or had, access to your devices.

• Do they know your passcode? Then they can open Photos, the Hidden album, Messages and Files.
• Do you share an Apple Account or iCloud Shared Photo Library? Then screenshots may sync straight to their device.
• Have they set up anything on your phone? A fingerprint, a Face ID appearance, a shared location or an unknown app.

Safety Check (Settings › Privacy & Security › Safety Check, iOS 16 and later) shows who you share with and which apps have access, and lets you stop sharing. Be aware that changes like stopping location sharing or changing a passcode may be noticed. If the person could react dangerously, talk to a support organisation before making changes. Our after a breakup page has more on reviewing access.

Capturing evidence that’s useful

Generally, records are more helpful when they’re complete and in context:

• Screenshot whole conversations, including the sender’s name or number, dates and times.
• Keep the original messages where possible, rather than only screenshots.
• Note what happened in your own words, with dates, in a simple log.
• Keep photos of damage or injuries with the date they were taken. Photo metadata such as date and location can matter here, so don’t strip it from evidence you may hand over. (It’s a different story for photos you post publicly; see removing photo metadata.)

What counts as evidence, and how it should be kept, varies by country. A support organisation, a lawyer or the police can tell you what’s useful where you live.

Keep a second copy, always

Evidence that can be lost isn’t much use. Phones break, get taken, or get erased. Keep at least one more copy somewhere the person harassing you can’t reach — for example with a trusted friend, a support worker, or an account they don’t know about and can’t access. Sending copies to an email address or storage they can’t log in to is one common approach.

How Velcrypt can help

Velcrypt can keep a private copy of screenshots, photos and documents on your iPhone, separate from the Photos library. Once you delete the originals from Photos and empty Recently Deleted, they don’t appear in your camera roll, sync to a shared account or show up in Memories.

Vaults open with a pattern drawn on a 5×5 grid, not your device passcode or Face ID, so knowing your passcode isn’t enough. Every pattern opens its own vault, and a wrong pattern opens an empty vault without an error. That means nothing on screen proves your evidence vault exists, which is explained in plausible deniability. The app locks automatically when you leave it, and its content is hidden in the app switcher.

Honest limits — please read

• Velcrypt must not be your only copy. In the first version, vault data isn’t included in iCloud or computer backups. If the phone is lost, broken or taken, or you forget the pattern, the vault can’t be recovered by anyone.
• The app is visible. The Velcrypt icon appears on your Home Screen. iOS 18 lets you hide apps behind Face ID in a hidden folder, but someone who checks closely may still notice an app. Consider whether that could put you at risk.
• Someone watching you draw your pattern, or taking your phone while the vault is open, defeats the lock.
• Monitoring software on a jailbroken or tampered phone can see what’s on screen. If you suspect this, a support organisation can advise; using a device the person has never had access to may be safer.
• Copies elsewhere remain. Messages, email and iCloud keep their own copies until you remove them.

You deserve to be safe, and to be believed. Keeping your records private and backed up is one practical step; you don’t have to take the rest alone.