RollGuard scans your photos for identity documents like passports and driver's licences, payment cards, screenshots of old passwords and credentials, and sensitive images, without any of it ever leaving your phone.
Free to try·No account·Nothing ever uploaded
One email at launch. Nothing else. Unsubscribe anytime.
RollGuard doesn't have a server. There's no account to create, no photo ever uploaded, nothing sent anywhere for analysis. Every scan — and every result — stays on the device in your hand. Don't take our word for it: turn on Airplane Mode and run a scan. Everything works.
Once a scan finds something, you decide what happens to it: keep it, hide it into your iPhone's own protected Hidden album — locked behind Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode — or delete it from your library entirely. RollGuard never acts on your photos without you telling it to.
Every scan runs the same four checks, on-device, and reports back plainly — no invented accuracy scores, no vague warnings.
29 seconds, silent — the whole flow.
Most photo scanners stop at "this looks like an ID." RollGuard reads it.
When RollGuard checks a photo, it reads the text in the image, works out what kind of document it's looking at and where it's from, and then checks it against the document's own rules — the machine-readable zone on a passport or ID card, the checksum on a Medicare card or payment card — before it flags anything for you. In the review queue, that's the difference between "looks like a passport" and "passport, MRZ verified."
That's the difference between a guess and a reading. It's the kind of checking normally done by tools companies use to find leaked documents — running on your phone, for you, and nowhere else.
Because RollGuard reads documents, it can also miss what it can't read: blurred, cropped, or badly lit photos of IDs may not be flagged. That's why the results screen tells you what was checked — and what wasn't.
Same scan, same on-device engine — these are just the moments people actually reach for it.
Handing over a work phone
IT policies, MDM tools, and shared backups can all reach your camera roll. Run a sweep before it's someone else's to manage.
Selling or trading in
Backups carry everything forward, even what you meant to delete years ago. Check before you back up and hand it off.
Handing your phone to family
Kids playing games, grandparents scrolling photos — a quick sweep first means nothing sensitive is one swipe away.
Before you travel
Border checks, lost phones, hotel WiFi — travel light on sensitive documents and old passwords, not just photos.
Honest answers to the questions people actually ask about what's on their phone — which risks are real, which are overstated, and what to do.
Travel
Can border officers search my phone?
Yes — in Australia, the US and the UK, without a warrant. What the law says, what refusing costs, and what actually helps.
Travel
Is public phone charging safe?
The FBI warning is real; the risk to an updated iPhone is small. Why there are no confirmed victims, and what iOS 18.4 changed.
Your photos
What's in my camera roll that I've forgotten?
The passport photo for a booking, the card for a form, the password screenshot — why they're there and why they outlive their purpose.
Selling & trade-in
Before you sell or trade in your iPhone
Erasing works — but your photos aren't only on the phone any more. Sweep before you back up, not just before you sell.
Your photos
Should I delete photos of my ID?
Mostly, yes. When to delete, when to keep, and where to keep the ones you need — somewhere better than your camera roll.
Your photos
Who can see my photos when I hand over my phone?
Repair shops, colleagues, family, buyers, officers. No hacking required — just a person, a phone, and a few seconds.
The free version isn't a locked demo — it's a genuinely complete scan that keeps working through your whole library on its own, for as long as you leave it running. Pro unlocks acting on everything it finds.
RollGuard Free
$0
No sign-up, no trial period, no limits on how often you use it.
One email at launch. Nothing else.
RollGuard Pro
US$19.99 once
Shown in your local currency on the App Store. No subscription — ever.
Unlock inside the app, after your free scan shows you what's there.
RollGuard reads what's on the phone — and tells you plainly when something isn't.
If your iPhone uses "Optimise iPhone Storage", iOS may move some original photos to iCloud — but only when your phone is genuinely short of space, and it takes videos and app data first. Many phones with Optimise on still hold every photo, and RollGuard checks all of them normally.
When some originals really are stored only in iCloud, RollGuard won't pretend otherwise: the results screen tells you exactly how many couldn't be checked, and roughly when they're from.
Two ways to check them. RollGuard Pro can fetch and check them one at a time over Wi‑Fi — a download only, nothing uploaded, and no storage settings changed. Or download everything yourself: Settings → Apps → Photos → Download and Keep Originals (on iOS 17, under Settings → Photos) — best done overnight on Wi‑Fi and charge for a large library. They're checked on your next scan, and once you've reviewed everything you can switch back to Optimise.
And if your library is bigger than your phone's storage, downloading everything isn't possible — RollGuard Pro's one-at-a-time check is built for exactly that.
RollGuard is a thorough second pair of eyes, not a guarantee. It won't tell you your library is "safe," because it can't know that — no scanner can. It reads printed text (not handwriting), works best on clear photos, uses Apple's own model for sensitive images, and deliberately errs toward asking. It can only read photos that are actually on your phone — photos stored only in iCloud are counted, not checked, until you download them or ask RollGuard Pro to fetch and check them one at a time. It shows you what it found and lets you decide.
No. There's no server for it to talk to. Scanning, matching, and storing results all happen using your iPhone's own processor. Scanning even works in Airplane Mode — feel free to try.
When RollGuard scans a photo, the text it recognises is examined on your phone and then discarded. For a photo that's flagged, RollGuard keeps just enough to show you the result: which photo it was, what kind of thing it found, and a masked fragment — the same "•••• 4242" you see in the review queue. The full text of the photo is never stored.
For a photo that isn't flagged, RollGuard keeps only that it was checked, when, and basic photo metadata — no text, no content, no record of what was in it. Photos beyond your free 30-day window that the background check counts but can't show you aren't stored at all; only the counts persist — how many, by category, and how many photos were checked — nothing about which photos.
Because RollGuard stores no raw text from your photos, there's no hidden index of your library sitting on the device. A backup carries the same masked view you see in the queue — no text or fragments a person could use. Whatever action you take, RollGuard has already forgotten the text it saw.
If your iPhone uses "Optimise iPhone Storage," many of your older photos live in iCloud, with only a small preview on the phone. RollGuard reads what's on the phone — it can't read a preview, so those photos are counted as unchecked, never quietly marked as fine. The results screen tells you exactly how many.
To include them: Settings → Apps → Photos → Download and Keep Originals (on iOS 17, the setting is under Settings → Photos), plug the phone in on Wi‑Fi, and give it time — a large library can take a night; downloaded photos are checked automatically on the next scan. Or RollGuard Pro can fetch and check them one at a time over Wi‑Fi, without changing your storage settings. If your library is bigger than your phone's storage, RollGuard checks what's there and tells you plainly how much it couldn't.
While iCloud is still syncing your library to the new phone, the unchecked count will be large — that's photos that haven't finished downloading yet, and the number falls on its own as the sync completes. Re-scan after the sync, or RollGuard Pro can check them now, one at a time over Wi‑Fi.
Keep clears the item from RollGuard's review queue and leaves the photo exactly as it is. Hide moves it into your iPhone's own Hidden album — a standard iOS feature, protected by Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode. RollGuard doesn't create a separate hiding place of its own; it uses Apple's, and the photo is never removed from your library. Delete is the only action that removes the photo itself, and it always asks Apple's system permission first, the same as deleting any photo manually.
When any app deletes a photo — RollGuard, or Photos itself — iOS moves it to the Recently Deleted album for 30 days before removing it permanently. That's Apple's safety net against accidental deletion, and it applies to every app on your iPhone. If you want a photo gone immediately — say, before handing your phone to someone — open Photos → Recently Deleted (Face ID may be required), select the photo, and delete it there. RollGuard treats a photo as handled the moment it enters Recently Deleted, because at that point it's no longer part of your active library.
No. RollGuard Pro is a single one-time purchase that unlocks everything, permanently.
RollGuard only runs while it's open, by design — iOS pauses apps the moment you switch away or lock your screen, the same as any app without special permission to keep running in the background. A full scan can take a while depending on how many photos you have, so just leave RollGuard open and the screen unlocked until it finishes — you'll see live progress the whole time, and you can turn on a notification to know the moment it's done.
RollGuard tells you exactly that — nothing hidden, no vague "all clear" message. If a scan finds nothing, RollGuard says so plainly and won't push you to buy anything you don't need: "Nothing else flagged this time. No need to upgrade to Pro right now — re-run this free scan every 30 days to stay on top of anything new."
Handwriting. RollGuard reads printed text. A handwritten note — a password on a sticky note, a signature on the back of a card — is largely invisible to it. If you know handwritten secrets live in your photos, that's a search only your eyes can do.
Blurry, angled, or dark photos. Detection is only as good as what can be read. A crisp screenshot is easy; a passport photographed at an angle in bad light may slip through. When RollGuard misses something, it's usually because the text simply couldn't be recognised.
Photos stored only in iCloud. With "Optimise iPhone Storage" on, older photos may not be on the phone to read. RollGuard counts them as unchecked and says so — see the question above for how to include them, or RollGuard Pro can fetch and check them one at a time over Wi‑Fi, without changing your storage settings.
Sensitive images. This check is Apple's own model, running on your phone. It's good, and it's private — but it's Apple's, with its own judgement about what counts. RollGuard can't tune it, only report it.
False alarms. RollGuard deliberately errs toward asking. A news article about driving licences, a receipt with a long number, an ID card that's already expired — some of what it flags won't matter to you. That's by design: a flag is a question for your review, never an accusation. Better a few unnecessary questions than a missed passport.
You can, and if you're looking for one photo you remember taking, that's exactly what search is for — and it's free.
RollGuard does a different job. Search finds what you ask for; a scan finds what you forgot to ask about. Checking your library by search means thinking of every term — passport, licence, Medicare card, bank card, the WiFi password screenshot, the backup codes — and you can't search for the one you've forgotten. RollGuard runs every check in one pass and tells you what it found, what it didn't, and how many photos it couldn't read.
There's also a difference in what "found" means. Search shows you things that look like passports — including news articles and airport signs — and misses things that don't look like anything, like a password sitting in a screenshot of a message. RollGuard reads the document and checks it against its own rules: the machine-readable zone on a passport, the checksum on a card. That's what "MRZ verified" means in the review queue.
And search just finds; it doesn't help you decide. RollGuard keeps a queue — keep, hide, or delete, each one your call — and remembers what you've already reviewed, so next month's scan only asks about what's new.
Text in your photos is read by Vision, Apple's on-device recognition framework — the same technology behind Live Text. Sensitive images are identified by Apple's Sensitive Content Analysis, the on-device model that powers iOS's own Sensitive Content Warning. RollGuard runs on iOS 17 and later, so these checks are available on every phone it installs on. Access to your library goes through PhotoKit: Delete goes through iOS's own confirmation dialog, and Hide moves the photo into your iPhone's Hidden album. RollGuard adds detection logic on top; it doesn't add servers, accounts, or third-party analytics. The only network connections RollGuard makes on its own are for the Pro purchase — Apple's in-app purchase, handled through RevenueCat, which receives anonymous purchase data and nothing about your photos — and, only if you opt in, anonymous crash and error reports to Sentry, which get a stack trace and device model and nothing about your photos either. And, only when you ask RollGuard to check photos stored in iCloud, it downloads your own originals from your iCloud to your phone through Apple's Photos system — a download only; nothing is sent back. With the crash-report switch off, the only other connection is the one you start yourself when you ask it to check iCloud photos.
The free scan checks your last 30 days completely, then keeps working through the rest of your library — showing you a real count of what's there before you decide anything.
Free to try·No account·Nothing ever uploaded
One email at launch. Nothing else. Unsubscribe anytime.
Need help, have feedback, or found a bug? Get in touch directly:
support@rollguard.app