So I discovered on my spouse's phone an app that hides photos. It is password protected, and I tried guessing several of their favorite passwords and none of them worked.

Now I'm reading that this app (called Photo Vault) is intentionally designed to hide cheating behavior. Not only is it password-protected, but it has a "decoy password" so that if the decoy password is used a different set of photos is displayed (to keep the damning evidence still hidden).

And it has a "breakin report" so if someone tries to enter the app with the wrong password, it will secretly take their picture and record their gps location.

Any tips on how to crack it?

Ok, I loaded the app onto my phone to play around with it and try to figure it out. So evidently, the "decoy password" and "breakin report" are only available by paying for the app, not the free version.

I'm not sure if it's 5 or 8 attempts before that sets off the "breakin report" email to alert the app's owner. I've seen both numbers mentioned online. To be safe, try no more than 4 passwords or else you may blow your cover.

It doesn't sound like the app uploads any photos to a cloud to hide them. They are all still on the device. But from what I can tell, they are now encoded with a new name. At least, I took a photo and uploaded it to Photo Vault. Now when I search for it in a file manager, the search produces no results. But the pic is still on the phone somewhere, under some different name or something.

Does anyone know where an android app stores its data or files?

Most downloads go to the Download folder, which can be accessed by the Downloads app. Some apps download files to a separate folder, either by design or because the coders weren't thinking straight. An example is where Facebook downloads photos--it isn't to the Download folder, but instead to /storage/sdcard0/com.facebook.katana.

The best thing to do is install a good 3rd party file manager app like ES File Explorer or Total Commander. If you download something that doesn't show up in the Download folder, then you can use your file manager app to look for wherever the file may have been downloaded.