You lost your iPhone: what happens to your private photos

In the first hour

1. Play a sound first if it might be nearby, then mark it as lost. Use the Find My app on another Apple device, a family member’s device in Family Sharing, or icloud.com/find. Apple says Lost Mode locks the device with your passcode and suspends the cards you use with Apple Pay.
2. Add a phone number and a short message if you think it was simply dropped, so a taxi driver or a café can call you. For a phone you think was taken, leave them out and follow the stolen iPhone page.
3. Call your carrier to report the phone missing and ask whether your plan covers it (Apple).
4. Expect a delay. Apple says the phone shows up online and in Lost Mode only while it is on and connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network.

Nothing needs doing in the vault this hour. Sealed locks as soon as you leave it unless you choose a delay, and it covers its contents in the app switcher.

What a finder can reach

Your vault key is kept in the iPhone Keychain, on this device only, and it can be read only while the phone is unlocked. Each file gets its own random 256-bit key, and that key is sealed with your vault key.

One gap in the middle row: With plain Face ID unlock on, someone who knows your iPhone passcode can open Sealed through the Face ID prompt. Dual Lock closes it. Dual Lock asks for your passcode and a Face ID match together, and it is part of Sealed Pro.

Someone guessing at the vault’s lock screen soon has to wait. By default, after three wrong passcodes in a row Sealed locks entry for 30 seconds, then for 1, 5, 15 and finally 60 minutes after each further wrong try.

Watch for messages about it

Apple says it will never contact you to say your iPhone has been found. A text or call that says so, and asks for your passcode or a code, is not from Apple. Never share your passcode or verification codes with anyone who asks.

If it turns up

1. Unlock it and turn Lost Mode off. Apple notes that with Stolen Device Protection on, turning Lost Mode off needs Face ID or Touch ID, not just the passcode.
2. Open the vault with your own code and check for alerts. Once Break-In Alerts is on, Settings, under Break-In Report, has a Security Alerts list with each break-in alert, its photo and its location, and tapping the location opens Apple Maps.

If it doesn’t

1. Erase it remotely, once you have tried everything else. Apple warns an erase can’t be undone, and that it starts the next time the phone is online.
2. Keep it in Find My, even after the erase. Apple says removing it turns off Activation Lock.
3. Set up the replacement. On a new iPhone with a fresh install of Sealed, the first screen offers Restore a backup, you enter your recovery key and tap Restore My Vault, and Sealed shows how many of your files it has downloaded.
4. Let the files come down. On a new iPhone your files come down one by one once the vault is in place, and whatever doesn’t fit stays in iCloud and opens when you tap it. Before Sealed installs a recovery key on a new iPhone, it checks that the key opens a real record in your iCloud backup, so a key from another vault, or an Apple Account with no backup, changes nothing.

You lose what never reached the backup, and what stays on the phone by design. Break-in photos and their locations stay on the iPhone: they are not part of your iCloud backup and never reach us.

Do this now, before anything is lost

• Let the backup run. The first time you save your recovery key, Sealed also turns on iCloud Backup, which is free. The vault home shows when you last backed up, or says plainly that your vault is only on this iPhone.
• Keep the recovery key off the phone. The recovery key is the only way to decrypt an iCloud backup on a new iPhone. The recovery key screen can save or print your key as a PDF sheet, so you can keep a copy on paper that outlives the phone. The recovery key page has more.
• Move private photos out of the camera roll. Photos and videos are sealed the moment they arrive, and afterwards you can remove the originals from Photos if you like.
• Turn on break-in alerts if you want a record of wrong tries. Break-in alerts take a short burst of front-camera photos after wrong passcodes, and note where it happened. Break-in alerts are part of Sealed Pro. The break-in alerts page shows the switches.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps by keeping a second lock between a finder and your private photos. Sealed has a passcode of its own, a gate inside the app that is separate from your iPhone passcode. Your passcode is a gate in front of the app. It is not part of the key.

It helps you get the vault back on a new phone. You can restore your vault on a new iPhone from your backup, with your recovery key. Encrypted iCloud backup is free.

It doesn’t find, lock or erase the phone. That is Find My, from Apple.

It doesn’t tell you when someone tries the vault. Sealed sends no notification when someone tries a wrong passcode: the only notifications it builds are the free-trial reminder, the day a time-sealed stack opens, the monthly checkup reminder and a finished privacy sweep, and it has no push server of its own.

It doesn’t bring back items that were never backed up. Once the key is back, Sealed shows your notes and records, brings photos and videos back from iCloud as you open them, and says plainly that items never backed up to iCloud stayed on the old iPhone and cannot be restored on the new one.