chattygirl

private photos I have always placed in a seperate file preceded with a "." And these have never shown in my gallery.....perfect. however I recently added a new photo to the same folder and this photo DOES appear in the gallery. Only this new photo....not the others that were already in the folder?
Any ideas to resolve this please.....soooo frustrated

chrlswltrs

You need to create a file named ".nomedia" and place it IN that folder. Then anything you put in that folder will not appear in the gallery

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brotherswing

Very useful, thank you.

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chrlswltrs

No problem. I have actually answered that same question a few times this week in different sections on here. Seems like everyone has the same question on different phones right now.

Glad I could help

chattygirl

Thankyou ill try this now. Where shall I place the folder named .nomedia..........on my sdcard?

chrlswltrs

Put it inside whatever folder you are putting the pictures in that you don't want in your gallery

chattygirl

I'm really sorry.....I can not get this to work....pics still showing in gallery?
I can't be setting it up correctly?
Step by step appreaciated ty

Last edited by chattygirl; April 22nd, 2012 at 06:22 AM.

chrlswltrs

Use a file explorer (I use root explorer personally)

Navigate to the folder that has the pictures you want hidden

Open that folder

Create a new file. In root explorer you push menu, then select new file

Name the file ".nomedia"

You may need to reboot after that. If that still doesn't work, make a new folder named whatever you want, create the .nomedia file in it, move your pictures to the new folder, then delete the old one

chattygirl

I can not get this to work.....its prob me being stoopid......but all my pics are still being displayed

I'm sorry, to clarify.....I'm using astro.....so, if all my pics are in folder named "pictures" and there are 5 of them I want hidden.......I create a subfolder within "pictures"...... name it ".nomedia.......put the 5 pics inside ".nomedia".......and then when I look in gallery......I still see my "pictures" but not the hidden 5?

Is this right or am I being really dim?.....you can be honest lol
Many thanks

chrlswltrs

Make a new folder, doesn't have to be inside pictures, but it can be. It doesn't matter what the folder is named.

Then open that folder and create a file inside that folder. The FILE needs to be named ".nomedia" not the folder. Any folder that you put a FILE in named .nomedia nothing will show up in your gallery

chattygirl

Thankyou sooooo......much.....that's much clearer.....I was creating a folder called
.media
Now I just need to work out how to create a file........can't see an option in astro. Could I just rename an existing picture maybe?

Sorry to be a pain.....not normally this blonde honest!

chrlswltrs

I'm not sure on other file explorers, and but I recommend you use this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.speedsoftware.explorer

It is the same as the one I use, but for non rooted phones. With this explorer just open the folder you want hidden then push the menu button. One of the options is create file

chattygirl

Many thanks for all your help. I have followed all steps above but to no avail! The pics I want hidden STILL show with gallery???

Stumped.......

Have really appreciated your time & patience though, many thanks again

chrlswltrs

So you have a folder with the pictures you want hidden. Open that folder. INSIDE that folder there should be:
1. A file named ".nomedia"
2. Pictures you want hidden

If that is correct try:
From you home screen -> menu -> settings -> apps -> gallery -> clear data

Then reboot, and see if the pictures are still there

chattygirl

I have it set up exactly as you have described above but...........pics still there! It's doing my head in!
However I have found a workaround. I have downloaded an app called "quickpic" and the "hidden photos" don't appear in there!

It's sooooo strange. So your set-up above definately works if I use quickpic but not whilst using the stock gallery app??

Thanks again for your time x

chrlswltrs

Glad you found a way to get it working. I haven't ever seen a phone before where it didn't work

brotherswing

Great tip, it worked on my Optimus V.

chattygirl

Just out of interest.....does this .nomedia fix work for everyone else?

I even tried it again today (time on my hands) but all pics still displayed via stock gallery.
Grrrrr......

mcowher

I'm having the same problem. Gallery is showing "new" pics added to folders that contain a ".nomedia" file and also pics added to a folder off my SD Card root folder called ".hidden".

Pre-existing files remain hidden from Gallery, but new files are being added to the Gallery, for both folder that begin with a "." and folders that contain a ".nomedia" file.

chattygirl

My exact problem....was beginning to think it was just me lol!

newtothisstuff

I researched how to hide photos a few months ago and learned of the (.) trick using Astro file manager. It worked perfectly, I created a very generic named folder inside an admin folder and added several photos I didn't want appearing in my gallery. Then I unselected "show hidden files" in the Astro "Look" options to further prevent a nosy individual from stumbling across the pictures. Everything worked fine and I could access the pictures whenever I wanted.

Now, any pictures I add to the same "hidden" file appear in my gallery as an all new group (I don't know what to call it) titled .*filename containing only the new pictures.
I have tried every suggestion on here as far as creating a .Nomedia main directory and moving the pictures under multiple layers of hidden folders but the pictures always appear in the gallery with the new file name!?

All the older pictures previously saved in the SAME folder do not appear and if I delete the new pictures the "group" disappears from the gallery!?
I won't download a specific picture hiding app because that in itself will raise hell if it's discovered!
Has anybody figured out the solution to this?

chattygirl

My exact same prob.....I too used to use the. Method


Quickpic app works brilliantly for me. Then just hide gallery app from app drawer so quickpic is the only app available to view photos

zanders

Can you not go into Gallery - select settings Show/hide albums and take the tick out of the ones you dont want to see?

chrlswltrs

That isn't an option in the stock Android gallery

newtothisstuff

So there's no option other than downloading a picture managing app I'll give this "quickpic" a try I guess.
So if I transfer all my pictures from my gallery into quickpic, plus my non-PG pics, can I then hide specific pics? and how easy would they be to access?

chrlswltrs

Read the above posts.

Make a folder and add a file called ".nomedia" to that folder. Then transfer the pics you want hidden to that folder. Then you would be able to access those via any file explorer you want to use, but they would not appear in the gallery.

newtothisstuff

doesn't work. I've tried it several times several different ways and even tried several layers of ".nomedia" folders inside ".nomedia" folders inside ".hidden" folders inside ."nomedia" folders lol. No matter what a new category (ie: camera, download, sdcard) of pictures will appear inside my gallery labeled whatever the end destination folder is named. However all the pictures previously saved (a couple months ago) in a folder I named ".sysadmin" do not appear in the gallery and are only view-able when I open Astro, select "show hidden files", open the "droidhen" folder and then open the .sysadmin folder.

I know we seem to be talking in a loop with this but I am baffled as to why a simple trick no longer works and the most confusing part is that if I add a picture to the .sysadmin folder a new gallery category is created containing only the new pictures and not the dozen or so older pictures saved in the SAME folder!?

Btw my device is a Casio Commando running android version 2.3.3

sleedeane

If you had T-mobile you could just send your pics to their on-line album then delete from gallery.
Your carrier doesn't have something like this?

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DrShaho

thanks for that question ;P
it worked on my S3

pipefitter

It has been my experience that when you move your pics to a folder with the .nomedia file, the gallery still shows the pictures. If you try to view any of the pictures that you moved, the gallery will not display them individually. Those pictures are not being rendered from the folder with the .nomedia file, but rather from the cache of the gallery. I call them "ghosts". These ghosts can be deleted from the gallery without losing them from the folder they have been moved to. Try it with a test picture. Download a pic, move it to your preferred "hidden" destination, go back to the gallery and delete the pic. Explore your hidden folder and select your picture. Done.

chrlswltrs

Thanks for that. I had some of these ghost pictures for the first time a couple weeks ago. I ended up changing ROMs anyways, so they went away, but I'll give your method a shot if it happens again.

mewalke

My Droid Razr M just updated a few days ago to Android 4.1.1 and now I am having the same problem with a twist. The images that were in that folder before the update are still hidden from the gallery... any new images that have b een placed in that folder since the update show up in the gallery. You can still click on the album and the picture, so they aren't "ghosts" as described above.

I'm not sure what the deal was with the update that caused this. The only other thing I can think to try is to recreate the .nomedia file so that it has a file creation date after the date of the upgrade... may be something funky with file dates. Other than that I'm at a loss.

arshyellowstar

I added "." before my Camera folder.
It deleted my folder.
I lost all my pics.

chrlswltrs

Just changing the folder name should not have deleted anything. Have you used a file explorer to check your SD card and verified the pictures can not be accessed that way?

alan1973

I created the .noname file....and the file disappeared...I can't even find it while connected to my PC. lost a lot of photos!

NightAngel79

Use a file Explorer and do a search for "no media" or whatever you named it.

Same thing happened to me when I created a nomedia folder

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babalonis

You should try QuickPic. There is an include folder page in settings, just add the folders you want to show. No need to mess with .nomedia.

slush1000

Hello everyone...

to make the ".nomedia" file work you need to open it as a text file in a plain text editor and add a few characters in it and save. This way the system will recognise it as a txt file and it should work.

I used ES File Explorer and ES Editor (comes with file explorer)

It did not work for me either until I discovered the above.

Edit: In a Linux environment any file that starts with a "." is a hidden file so you have to enable "show hidden files" in ES File Explorer or your chosen file browser to have it visible to open it.

Last edited by slush1000; December 25th, 2012 at 10:30 AM.

fgol

Excellent! Thank you for that tip. Just to expand on the hint: I added .nomedia to ..../Music and it eliminated from Gallery all of the album art scattered through all of the Artist / Album subfolders. I was hoping I didn't need to add it to every single subfolder.

Update (And NightAngel79 might UNthank me ): My media player came up with no songs, no albums, and no artists. I guess the nomedia in Music blocked it from searching too. I guess I'm off to download QuickPic.

Update to the update: As I noted here, RocketPlayer has a setting to ignore .nomedia. Cool.

Last edited by fgol; February 7th, 2013 at 04:08 PM. Reason: Technical clarification

Yourconnexx

i was reading this thread earlier. i tried all the things in here and none of it worked. after a while i took another crack at it with my own idea and i think i found the problem
the problem happens because the phone (evo 4g in my case) is not being "remounted" at the correct time after moving files (i used astro)

here's how i solved it

1. connect your phone to a pc or lap top via usb
2. when the "connect to pc" dialouge pops up, select disk drive/mount as disk drive
3. now on your pc or lap top, navigate to computer or my computer and find your device. (mine was drive M. your internal harddrive on your pc/laptop is usually drive C. so when you connect your phone to the pc via usb, the phone will be a letter further down in the alphabet depending on your machine)
4. when you find your phone on your pc/laptop navigate thru to find the folder where your hidden pics and vids are stored.
5. once you find it, rename the folder without the . in front of it. for example, my secret folder was .shoebox so i renamed the folder shoebox with out the . in front of it.
6. now swipe down on the info bar at the top of your screen on your phone. tap the screen where it says "select to change USB connection type". this will take you back to the "connect to pc" screen. this time, select "charge only" ....... now your sd card will "remount" back to your device. all your secrect pics will display in your gallery. but this is ok because we need all the files on the card to be mounted into the same place all at once.
7. now go back to the "connect to pc" screen. (i explained how to do this at the beginning of number 6. this time select "disk drive mount as disk drive" again. this is because we must access the sd card one more time for the final stage.
8. go back my computer or my computer to find your phone again. navigate back to your folder with your secret pics in it. THIS TIME YOU WILL HAVE TO RENAME THE FOLDER SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. BUT THERE IS A TWIST TO IT. WINDOWS WONT LET YOU CREATE A FOLDER WITH A . IN FRONT OF THE FILE NAME BECAUSE WINDOWS WILL SEE IT AS A FILE EXTENSION. in my case i renamed my folder from the name shoebox to h.safebox. the h is in front so windows will leave you alone. once you rename it, go back to the "connect to pc" screen, select charge only.
9. now go back to whatever file manager you have on your phone (i use astro) and rename the folder, only to take the h off of the front of the file name (mine was h.safebox)

this will leave you with just the . in front of your folder (.safebox in my case)

now that youre done renaming the folder,when you head back to your gallery, the first thing it will do is say "preparing sd card". then it will remove the selection of your secret folders old name (my folders old name was shoebox). the new name (which is .safebox in my case) wont show because you have the . in front of it and none of the pics from the renamed folder will show either.

you'll probably notice that there is a shorter way to do this once you know what your doing.thats because hind sight is 20/20 LOL. but i figured id post the long "simple" way because its easier to understand than posting some short advanced explaination which assumes you already know what youre doing.

once you learn this technique, you'll see that all you need is two names to switch back and forth with every now and again to hide your goodies. and by now you should see that these phones arent all theyre cracked up to be smh

Last edited by Yourconnexx; December 31st, 2012 at 05:55 PM.