How to Block Photos on iPhone (or Turn Off Memories Instead)

Blocking Photos on iPhone means switching the app off completely under Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions → Allowed Apps — there's no App Limit for it, so this is a flat on/off restriction, not a daily allowance. The cost is blunt: turning Photos off also turns off your camera roll, so you lose access to every photo and video on the phone, not just the ones getting resurfaced.

Most people who search this aren't trying to stop taking or viewing photos. They're trying to stop Memories, or the featured-photo widget, from resurfacing images from a period they'd rather not see again — after a breakup, a death, an illness. That's a narrower problem, and it has a narrower fix: Photos can turn off Memories and featured content specifically, hide one person or date from ever showing up in them, and drop the widget from your Home Screen — all without touching the camera roll itself.

How do you turn off Memories and the featured-photo widget without losing your camera roll?

This setting lives inside the Photos app, not Screen Time, so nothing about it needs a passcode.

1. Open the Photos app.
2. Tap Collections.
3. Tap your account icon in the top-right corner.
4. Turn off Show Featured Content. This stops Photos from generating Memories and featured photos anywhere on the phone, including the Home Screen and Lock Screen widget.
5. Turn off Show Holiday Events too, if automated holiday memories are part of what keeps surfacing.

Nothing is deleted. Every photo and video stays exactly where it was, in Library and Albums, fully searchable — only the automated resurfacing stops.

How do you hide one person, place, or day instead of turning Memories off completely?

Sometimes the account-level toggle is more than you need — one person, one week, one place is the actual problem.

1. Open a photo of the person.
2. Tap the ••• button, then tap Don't Feature a Person.
3. If more than one person is in the photo, select the one you mean, then tap Next.
4. Choose Feature This Person Less or Never Feature This Person, then tap Confirm.

For a specific memory rather than a person — a day, a place, a whole event — touch and hold the memory itself and tap Feature Less, then pick Feature This Day Less, Feature This Place Less, or Feature a Person Less. Delete a single memory outright the same way: touch and hold it, then tap Delete — that removes only the generated highlight reel, never the underlying photos.

Both are reversible. Collections → account icon → Reset People & Pets Suggestions brings a hidden person back; Reset Suggested Memories does the same for anything you've featured less.

Why does Photos keep resurfacing the same period?

Photos isn't pulling you back with a feed algorithm or a notification streak the way social apps do. It's grouping your own footage by date, location, and face recognition, then surfacing that grouping automatically as a "memory," on the assumption that a highlight reel of your own life is something you'd want to see. For most of a camera roll, that assumption holds — it just doesn't account for the one week, the one person, or the one place a reader is specifically trying not to be reminded of.

There's also no third-party workaround here the way there is for something like Instagram, where blocking the app still leaves instagram.com reachable in a browser. Photos is Apple's own gallery, tied to the same library that iCloud, Files, and every other app on the phone can reach. There's no separate website or companion client to account for — turning off the automated surfacing inside the app is the entire fix, because there's nothing else generating it.

How do you actually block the Photos app, if that's still what you want?

Some readers do want the icon gone entirely, not a curated slice of it. That's a real option, but it's blunt — it removes the whole camera roll along with everything Memories was surfacing.

1. Open Settings → Screen Time.
2. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions. First time here, you'll set a separate Screen Time passcode, different from your device passcode — worth doing deliberately, since without one this restriction lasts exactly as long as it takes to reopen this screen and switch it back.
3. Tap Allowed Apps.
4. Find Photos in the list and turn the switch off.

The Photos icon disappears from the Home Screen and the app can't be opened. This isn't an App Limit — Apple doesn't apply App Limits to its own built-in apps, so Photos never appears in that list the way a downloaded app would. Messages works the same way: Allowed Apps or nothing.

What does blocking Photos cost you, and what can't it fix?

Turning off Photos removes the camera roll, not just Memories — screenshots, saved boarding passes, receipts stored as images, all of it becomes unreachable until you switch it back on. If any of that is something you need day to day, the Memories-only route above is worth trying first.

The photos themselves don't disappear anywhere else. The same library stays reachable from iCloud.com in a browser, assuming Safari is still open, or from any other device signed into the same Apple ID — Allowed Apps only removes one app's access on one iPhone. And Screen Time restrictions generally hold up only as well as the passcode behind them: anyone who knows it can switch Photos back on in seconds, and a forgotten one resets through Apple ID recovery, a legitimate feature rather than a flaw.

None of this changes what's on the phone. If the pull isn't really the app but a specific memory attached to specific images, turning the icon off — or back on — doesn't change what's in the library, only who can currently see it.

FAQ

Does turning off Show Featured Content delete any photos?

No. It only stops Photos from generating Memories, featured photos, and widget suggestions automatically. Every photo and video stays in your Library and Albums exactly as it was, and you can still open, edit, or share any of them directly.

Will Feature This Person Less or Never Feature This Person delete photos of that person?

No. Both options only change what Photos surfaces automatically in Memories and featured content. The photos stay in your library, fully searchable, and you can undo the choice later from Reset People & Pets Suggestions.

Why isn't Photos in the App Limits list the way other apps are?

Apple doesn't apply App Limits to its own built-in apps. Photos, like Safari, Messages, and App Store, is restricted through Content & Privacy Restrictions → Allowed Apps instead — an on/off switch, not a daily time budget.

If I turn off the Photos app, can I still see my photos somewhere else?

Yes. Turning off the app doesn't touch the underlying library, so the same photos stay reachable from iCloud.com in a browser, or from any other device signed into the same Apple ID — Allowed Apps only removes that one app's access on that one iPhone.

What happens if I forget my Screen Time passcode after blocking Photos?

You can reset it through Change Screen Time Passcode → Forgot Passcode using your Apple ID, available since iOS 13.4. That's a legitimate recovery option, but it also means anyone with access to your Apple ID can undo the restriction the same way.

Do I need a Screen Time passcode just to turn off Memories?

No. Show Featured Content and Show Holiday Events are ordinary settings inside the Photos app, not Screen Time restrictions, so no passcode is involved — which also means anyone using the phone can switch them back on just as easily.

Sources

• Apple Support — "Hide people, memories, and holidays in Photos on iPhone"
• Apple Support — "Share or delete memories in Photos on iPhone"
• Apple Support — "Restrict content and privacy on iPhone"
• Apple Support — "Use Screen Time on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch"