Question about Gallery showing unintended files - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So when I open the gallery app it appears as if it's scanning all folders on my entire SD card and showing an images that lies in any folder or subfolder....? How do I stop this...? I only want it to show 'pictures' pictures that I take... Is there any way to select what folders gallery displays?

Isn't there like some kind of naming system you can use...
Oh here we go.
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20072405-285/how-to-hide-photos-on-android/
I know that would be a bit tedious... but that's the best I can think of for now.

SefEXE said:
Isn't there like some kind of naming system you can use...
Oh here we go.
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20072405-285/how-to-hide-photos-on-android/
I know that would be a bit tedious... but that's the best I can think of for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip. I know on a file level this can be done (this is *nix based so appending a . for hiding folders is common) however I was really looking for a more elegant solution... maybe something even built into settings or the gallery that I hadn't seen before that allows you to set which folders are your picture folders. The method of putting a . in front of the folder name means that many applications that NEED that data would also not be able to read it either. For example .mymusic where I would store music and by association album art which I would not want to show up in gallery. If music players didn't have the ability to scan hidden folders (many don't and why would they need that?) then I would not be able to use that music player. This seems a bit ridiculous to me seeing as Android is touted so much as the most advanced mobile OS in the world... something as basic as setting media type/folders/locations shouldn't be something that users should have to hack around to fix... It's a bit annoying to say the least. I have like 40 folders showing up in gallery consisting of album art, icons I've downloaded, other files I've downloaded for work that happen to contain images in them etc... That should not be showing up in my 'photo' gallery.
If there are any other suggestions I would really appreciate some more input on the best way to fix this.

IIRC you can put a .nomedia file in a folder to prevent the gallery from scanning files in that folder, but that might still run into the problem of interfering with other applications. Also, some applications seem to ignore the .nomedia request...

itpromike said:
If there are any other suggestions I would really appreciate some more input on the best way to fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Second best thing I can think of is what developers have been doing since Android came out, probably.
Find(or make) a replacement app that does what the basic gallery can do, but with more bells and whistles. :silly:
I know there's a few out there. There's got to be one that does what you're saying. I have a few extra folders that display images... A few album covers, extracted winrars... But it's not as bad as it is for you.
Sorry I'm not too helpful, but I try to chime in where I can.

I just use Solid Explorer to put a .nomedia file in the folder. Gets all the images I've downloaded from Tapatalk out of my gallery.
Sent from my Paranoid Nexus 4 using Tapatalk²

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I've resorted to just using the .nomedia file in all the folders. I realized recently though that this presents some unique challenges for music/audio/ringtones etc... however. oh well, can't get everything you want I guess. You would think that an OS as advanced as Android would have a better way of handling such a common occurrence....

itpromike said:
Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I've resorted to just using the .nomedia file in all the folders. I realized recently though that this presents some unique challenges for music/audio/ringtones etc... however. oh well, can't get everything you want I guess. You would think that an OS as advanced as Android would have a better way of handling such a common occurrence....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried quickpic? There might be an option in there, not sure as I've never used it. It also doesn't integrate with the stock camera app well.
Sent from my Paranoid Nexus 4 using Tapatalk²

Have you thought about hiding in the pictures in a vault app? If it's only specific pictures you don't want shown, then you can just encrypt them and decrypt them when you want them again. It will hide those pictures from any apps that try to access them while they're encrypted

Related

How to hide pictures?

Hello,
I have some pictures of my girlfriend when shes naked on my phone and i dont like that when i open my photos & videos first thing you see is my girlfriend naked. Its pretty annoying if my friends uses my phone and i cant let them go see pictures becouse im not that kind of boyfriend So is there any way to hide pictures / make folder with password? And sorry for my bad english i hope you guys understand.
like your honesty!!!
using file explorer.. go to...
(depending where your pictures are stored)
cut and paste the pictures contained in DCIM\100media\
into a new folder somewhere else on the storage card.. and it will no longer appear in the image gallery
nutmegy said:
using file explorer.. go to...
(depending where your pictures are stored)
cut and paste the pictures contained in DCIM\100media\
into a new folder somewhere else on the storage card.. and it will no longer appear in the image gallery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That doesnt work, when i click "all albums" you can see those pictures.
Mate - have a look at this, in the hits & tips thread linked in my sig...
64. Disable Unwanted Folders From Showing in HTC Album
It just hides a folder from the album app. You can still manually browse to it with file explorer, for example, and open images from there.
Hope this helps
johncmolyneux said:
Mate - have a look at this, in the hits & tips thread linked in my sig...
64. Disable Unwanted Folders From Showing in HTC Album
It just hides a folder from the album app. You can still manually browse to it with file explorer, for example, and open images from there.
Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man =) that helped
lol i forgot to add that bit!!, anyway your "Friends" shouldn't be rooting around your phone anyway!!!! heheh
simple..send them to me and I'll hide them for you
twisted-pixel said:
simple..send them to me and I'll hide them for you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha =D you wish
i edited thet registry key but i'm having troubles.. while it is actually hiding pictures in htc album, they are still showing up in manila's tab, am i doing something wrong?
WinRar the files. You can even put a password on it so that if you loose the phone no one can see the pics. I found it the easiest and most secure way to hide your girlfriends pictures.
RReckless
Free app to protect pictures
Hi,
Search for an app called FreeOTFE4PDA. It allows you to create a fully encrypted, password protected folder on your card. This can then be mounted as a storage card when needed. Within this you can create folder and do anything else you can do on a storage card. The important part is of course that you can not mount it if you do not know the password.
Regards
i run both windows and android, so what i'm trying to do is to hide android's gallery cache files (why did developers think that using readable jpg files as cache would be a good idea in the first place?)
that's the reason i want them to remain accessible for android use, but still don't want them to fill my windows photo tab with duplicates, so no rar storing can solve my problem
i fear i'll have to give up the 3d glory of android's gallery due to this stupid issue...
Use Total Commander, find the pictures, press & hold a picture, tap Properties, check the box "Hidden", press OK. The pictures can only be accessed through Total Commander.
It's a good thing my 900th post went to a good cause!
l30 said:
i run both windows and android, so what i'm trying to do is to hide android's gallery cache files (why did developers think that using readable jpg files as cache would be a good idea in the first place?)
that's the reason i want them to remain accessible for android use, but still don't want them to fill my windows photo tab with duplicates, so no rar storing can solve my problem
i fear i'll have to give up the 3d glory of android's gallery due to this stupid issue...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly the problem i'm having. You just have to keep the photos rarred while you using android. Not the perfect solution, if you find a better 1 i'm interested too.
Sent from my HanDroid2 using XDA App
1)Change the extension to some other (from jpg to ipg in example). So no one program will open it. When you need it change again to jpg.
2)make it hidden or system

Hiding folders created by apps?

Hi guys,
I know this is an issue for many alike myself, I HATE how some android apps and the system automatically create folder on the SDcard (tmp, LOST.DIR, albumthumbs, adobe etc) and even worse have stupid names for some of them. Im quite the perfectionist so i really would like to have them gone (hidden) or at least renamed. As hiding them is the easier option I want to know if this is even possible?
I've tried mounting my SDcard and changing those files to hidden, but in Android they still display. I've tried the '.' method of hiding but this causes errors for some apps as the folders aren't being located correctly.
I've searched around with no solution as of yet so if anybody has a way please let us know.
no stupid comments about hiding your porn and **** please.
I hate to not be any help, but I would also like a way to do this.
I hate looking into my SD card and seeing a bunch of random sh!t.
so bump i guess
Even though it don't bother me i don't understand why developers don't do like linux apps and use /sdcard/.twidroid type of folder?
This drives me insane as well. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about it. This is on the developers of the apps to fix.
Does Google actually recommend a specific folder to put these files, something like .config or .cache like in Linux?
It would have been so easier if all these folder went inside a single folder like program files .. I m too frustated bocs these app folders
They recommend /Android/data/<package_name>/files/
see: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html#filesExternal
One option is to override what the below two routines return. (AOSP code)
getExternalStorageDirectory() and
getExternalFilesDir()
i.e. set it to /sdcard/data/
ps: I remember asking this a year ago, still bugs me that nobody has done it yet.
suhas_sm said:
It would have been so easier if all these folder went inside a single folder like program files .. I m too frustated bocs these app folders
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 This would be a good idea.

Gallery Shows All Photos?

When using Gallery it shows all types of pics regardless if they are photos, Icons, Defaults, FrmStart, FrmQuick, Popups, alarms, data, etc. Is there an app that will allow you to pick/choose what is brought up and displayed? I don't want or need to see all this extra junk. Thanks in advance.
asctony said:
When using Gallery it shows all types of pics regardless if they are photos, Icons, Defaults, FrmStart, FrmQuick, Popups, alarms, data, etc. Is there an app that will allow you to pick/choose what is brought up and displayed? I don't want or need to see all this extra junk. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The easiest "app-less" way to do this is to place a .nomedia file in the directories you want not to show up. You can also place a "." in front of the name of the directory (folder) itself, but this will cause problems if that folder is used by android or other apps.
mastajest said:
The easiest "app-less" way to do this is to place a .nomedia file in the directories you want not to show up. You can also place a "." in front of the name of the directory (folder) itself, but this will cause problems if that folder is used by android or other apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the nomedia app. So, this also works for music and all media files, too. Thank you!
asctony said:
I have the nomedia app. So, this also works for music and all media files, too. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Used the Find All option for nomedia app and it only ID 5 Directories. Tried Multi-Select and it showed all directories. Picked the ones that I thought I could ID that do not contain Pics/Photos and that is most of them. However, even then I still have over 30 more items shown using Gallery that do not really contain pics/photos such as:
various apps, browser, common, controls, data, default, frmaddalarm, and other frm items, icons, etc.
So, this is not the answer to reducing items that show up in Gallery. Any other suggestions? Thanks again.

Google Photos doesn't "map" my pictures despite being on my phone

I have this issue where my pictures (camera pics and otherwise) doesn't show up in the photos app.
Using a file explorer app, I see that all my images are there in the DCIM folder, so they are definitely still on the phone.
Using the likes of WhatsApp and similar, I used to be able to select and send pictures, and it would categorize them into the folders I've downloaded them into.
For instance, while camera pictures are in /DCIM/Camera - images downloaded from apps and websites are in either /Download or /Pictures/{app_name}
Additionally, the file explorer tends to categorize your files into subcategories like "pictures", "apps" etc., but it doesn't do that for older files - only for new ones. So if I take a picture with the camera, it'll pop into Google Photos as well as being categorized a "picture" by the file explorer. Physically, it still has the same location as all the other camera pictures, which is /DCIM/Camera
My question is, how do I get the phone/Google Photos/file categorizer/whatever to "map" my pictures as being pictures again?
Setup info:
Huawei Nexus 6P, 64 GB, no external SD card
Rooted, PureNexus (latest July release)
ElementalX kernel (latest release)
-----------------------
UPDATE: So it appears, if there's a ".nomedia" file in any directory, it will not show files in this and recursively in media applications (photos, music, etc.) -- this could be what's causing this. But then I don't understand why NEW files shows up.
Is it recommended to delete the .nomedia file in root/sdcard ? I ask because I figure it's there for a reason.
having a .NOMEDIA file on a folder will cause it to be excluded
thats a feature
Also, if the folder name has a . in it at the beggining it will also do that... for example changing Camera to .Camera will exclude it
chaco81 said:
having a .NOMEDIA file on a folder will cause it to be excluded
thats a feature
Also, if the folder name has a . in it at the beggining it will also do that... for example changing Camera to .Camera will exclude it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah thanks, but removing the file does nothing. Old pictures are still nowhere to be found in gallery apps like Google Photos.
Is there a way to "re-map/re-index" media files?
i just want to state the obvious.... but did you open PHOTOS, then click the top left hambuger button and click DEVICE FOLDERS ??? According to you nothing still shows after this??
If you install an aftermarket app like Quickpic, does it still not show them?
Stopped using google photos for same reason. I flash roms like atleast once a month, all the photos that i took after flashing rom will show up, all the ones that were taken before flash wont. It has nothing to do with .nomedia or stuff like that, it just wont show them. If i go through directories i can reach them, i can also see them using any other gallery app, this only happens in google photos. I had a theory it had something to do with cloud backup, as if photos arent backed up in cloud it wont show them.
chaco81 said:
i just want to state the obvious.... but did you open PHOTOS, then click the top left hambuger button and click DEVICE FOLDERS ??? According to you nothing still shows after this??
If you install an aftermarket app like Quickpic, does it still not show them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks chaco81, I have tried device folders - and nothing is in there.
Next up, installed Quickpic and now they are all there. They are all categorized exactly as they should be. Fantastic! Just really weird it doesn't work with Google Photos, which leads me to this comment by @feis ....
feis said:
Stopped using google photos for same reason. I flash roms like atleast once a month, all the photos that i took after flashing rom will show up, all the ones that were taken before flash wont. It has nothing to do with .nomedia or stuff like that, it just wont show them. If i go through directories i can reach them, i can also see them using any other gallery app, this only happens in google photos. I had a theory it had something to do with cloud backup, as if photos arent backed up in cloud it wont show them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, thank you! That must be it, then. How weird is that? The cloud thing I theorized as well, as I don't want Google backing them up and therefore have it disabled. But like I said, I just installed Quickpic and now they're all there, neatly categorized into "screenshots", "camera", "Download" etc.
Next issue: This still persist with WhatsApp. When I go into "Gallery" (to send a picture or video), it'll only the new photos and videos -- none of the old ones. This, again, leads me to believe something is not as it should be. What causes this, and how do you fix it? Do you need to somehow "rescan" and "reindex" your media files?
Uninstalled google photos, started using app called "piktures" and all my problems were gone.
If you are going to use quickpic I would side load the last version before cheetah took over and ruined the app with all the cloud ***t Trying to think of what the last version was, maybe 4.5.2
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
Sheetzie03 said:
If you are going to use quickpic I would side load the last version before cheetah took over and ruined the app with all the cloud ***t Trying to think of what the last version was, maybe 4.5.2
Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read about that. I just installed Quickpic, and I don't get what the big issue is. The only cloud-thing I saw was an icon that I could easily disable/remove.
@feis
How exactly did you remove Google Photos? I can't uninstall.
I too have this issue. Annoying and I really should just use a different pic app
Just a quick update on this: The issue has been _sort of_ fixed by just switching to another photos app. So I think the problem is just that Google Photos doesn't reindex, and there doesn't seem to be a way to force it.
However, other apps that has access to media such as WhatsApp -- in this I still don't have the option of viewing older photos. So apps like WhatsApp's gallery feature, doesn't reindex either. Pretty annoying actually.

Oneplus Gallery app - filled with tons of icon pictures

Anybody know how to get rid of all the junk collection of non-photos in the Oneplus Gallery app. Or have a workaround in the stock software. The Gallery app shows photos taken from the camera app, and a " collection folder " at the bottom which stores a ton of garbage gifs of game screens, icons, etc that fill the folder.
Google Photos are NOT showing included in the Gallery app, and you can't share the Google pics from the photo app to text or share on facebook without saving them directly to another folder in app before sharing. .
If you open photos in facebook, the options are littered with like 1,000 gifs, of hearts, and emoticons, game screens, etc with the few camera photos mixed in from the Oneplus Gallery App.
I'd like to know where oneplus is storing these and wondering if I can get rid of the garbage " collection " folder or somehow replace that app as default to make the phone more usable for a family member. They love the phone but need facebook, and this is a major hangup for them that I'd like to help resolve. Can't find the folder with gallery folders with the explorer app I installed. They don't seem to be in DCIM. I may get my hands on phone this evening but any directions / solutions would be appreciated.
Thanks
I've noticed too so I'd appreciate it as well
still an issue.
It's been mentioned on Oneplus Website a couple times too. I searched the photo names ( long string of numbers ) and found the folder they were in. Deleted the folder and it got rid of a bunch, then deleted them individually. Slowed the problem but didn't stop it. Also tried to lock down the Gallery app from writing to phone with no luck.
Hoping they solve the problem pretty quickly with a software update or workaround. It's an annoying issue.
But I've not seen a resolution yet.
nook-color said:
It's been mentioned on Oneplus Website a couple times too. I searched the photo names ( long string of numbers ) and found the folder they were in. Deleted the folder and it got rid of a bunch, then deleted them individually. Slowed the problem but didn't stop it. Also tried to lock down the Gallery app from writing to phone with no luck.
Hoping they solve the problem pretty quickly with a software update or workaround. It's an annoying issue.
But I've not seen a resolution yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be able to create a file in the same directory as the icons named .nomedia (including the full stop at the start) using es file explorer etc. This informs android not to scan this folder for media files. I have had the same issue on previous phones in the past and this normally solves the issue. You may need to clear the data and cache from the gallery app to remove any icons already displayed after.
mrm1 said:
You should be able to create a file in the same directory as the icons named .momedia (including the full stop at the start
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pssst... typo there - I'm pretty sure you meant .nomedia
Archer said:
Pssst... typo there - I'm pretty sure you meant .nomedia
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL well spotted. Corrected :good:
Found a solution that seems to be working
I did a factory reset - and chose not to transfer all apps / data / settings, instead downloading each individual app to phone along with manual setup. I also disabled the "Oneplus Gallery" app from writing to the phone in app settings, while grabbing a random Gallery app from Play store. So far, for the day, seems to be working. I'm seeing no stickers pop up on the phone.
< Crossing fingers >
I'd be happy if I can get rid of the "Recently Deleted" feature.
mrm1 said:
You should be able to create a file in the same directory as the icons named .nomedia (including the full stop at the start) using es file explorer etc. This informs android not to scan this folder for media files. I have had the same issue on previous phones in the past and this normally solves the issue. You may need to clear the data and cache from the gallery app to remove any icons already displayed after.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're the man!! It totally worked as easy as that! I created one in the "Android\data" folder and directly on the "/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.facebook.orca/files/stickers/" that's it they disappeared.
Thanks again
The .momedia thing was pretty funny, you can imagine doing that and then android doubles the trash, you did after all ask for... mo.
I delete all that with this app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uni.unseengallery.ke

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