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For a short period after iOS 11 shipped, you could have returned to iOS 10
Lost access to vault with iOS 11
QI had an iPad app, called My Photos, in whose ‘vault’ I kept photos and documents hidden from view and protected with a passcode. The app isn’t compatible with iOS 11, so it stopped working when I upgraded. It’s no longer on the App Store and I can’t locate its developer. Can I install it on another iOS device running iOS 10 to access my protected documents?
AA few apps have offered a vault feature, including Private Photo Vault, which is compatible with iOS 11. We’ve been unable to trace your app on the App Store – it does appear to have vanished.
For a short period after iOS 11 shipped, you could have returned to iOS 10 and restored from a backup made before upgrading. That depends on Apple providing that older version for your device, which it has stopped doing. You’d also have needed a suitable backup – local or in iCloud – from which to restore.
Often the protection provided by vault apps is rudimentary, only sufficient to keep prying eyes away, and easily bypassed when your iPad’s storage is accessed from a Mac. Try iMazing (£34.99, imazing.com – there’s a trial version available) to test whether it’s able to access the files trapped in your vault, and whether they’re encrypted or readily viewable.
In iTunes 12.7 and later, you can’t download iOS apps or manage those that are installed on iOS devices. Further complicating matters, for a while iTunes hasn’t synced apps downloaded in iOS itself back to the Mac; with iOS 9, Apple introduced a set of techniques called ‘app thinning’ to save bandwidth and storage by downloading only what is necessary for the device you’re using, which would prevent you transferring apps, for example, from your iPad to your Mac and then to your iPhone.
Even having an iOS 10 device to hand is unlikely to help. At a stretch, there’s a chance My Photos might have stored a backup of its contents in a cloud-based service. You’d also need to be able to redownload the app from your past purchases. But you’ll probably find that My Photos stores its vault locally, and that you can’t transfer the vault’s contents given you’re unable to open the app.