Baffled

[Marilyn Johnston]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and not terribly technical minded. A problem with my Pixel 6a and Facebook has me baffled. When I go to post on Facebook and want to upload a photo from my phone, my phone tells me there are no photos on the phone but I can take one with the camera. There are lots of photo's in Gallery. I'm thinking it's a setting somewhere but I can't find it! This is the only phone in my long list of previous phones that has done this. Can anyone help?

 

[Dannydet]

By default, Facebook will only look for photos in its default folder on your device, which could be the DCIM folder.
Your going to have to copy those photos to the Facebook folder that it looks in, using a file explorer app on your phone, such as "Files"...
Once they are moved there, Facebook should see them....

 

[Marilyn Johnston]

By default, Facebook will only look for photos in its default folder on your device, which could be the DCIM folder.
Your going to have to copy those photos to the Facebook folder that it looks in, using a file explorer app on your phone, such as "Files"...
Once they are moved there, Facebook should see them....

I've not had a problem before with Facebook on any phone. It has always looked in the Gallery folder. How can I tell where it's looking now? This is my first Pixel and it's confusing!

 

[Dannydet]

It most likely is looking in your DCIM folder, which is your default camera folder.

 

[Hadron]

I've not had a problem before with Facebook on any phone. It has always looked in the Gallery folder. How can I tell where it's looking now? This is my first Pixel and it's confusing!

There's actually no such thing as a Gallery folder. The Gallery app on your phone shows images from all folders that contain images. And Pixels are no different from other phones in this respect. So my guess is that it's something to do with the setup of the Facebook app on this phone.

I don't know what the problem here is, but have you given the Facebook app permission to access files and media?

 

[svim]

It might help straightening out your problem if you can visualize just how your photos are stored on your phone.

The photo files that make up your photo library reside within a folder. At one time the DCIM folder (Digital Camera IMages) was the default name, an industry wide common standard so webcams, video recorders, mobile devices all used DCIM as the default save location.
But unfortunately proprietary interests messed that all up for us so now it's a matter of depending on the operating system version, the manufacturer, and, the app the default storage folder for photos might be named DCIM, or Photos, or Pictures, or Images, or whatever.
And you'll have multiple default save folders as different apps may be using different ones. That's the issue that you're encountering -- you're seeing your photos using the Gallery app since it's using its chosen default save folder(s) but the Facebook app is looking in a different folder as its default.

Once you take into consideration all that nonsense, that requires you to start doing a little sleuthing to determine just which folder your photos are stored in, and then you need to configure things so your Gallery app and your Facebook app are working off that same folder. I know you stated you're not too tech savvy but this will help you in the long run to be a lot more comfortable to just fix these kinds of quirks that will pop up occasionally. Get familiar with the various options in your Pixel's Settings menu, and with the Settings/Options/Preferences menu in the apps you use a lot. You can really optimize your phone to suit your particular needs. It may appear to be a daunting task, but just approach it one step at time.
Anyway, check if the Camera app has a default folder option in the app's Settings menu. That might point you to which folder. If it doesn't, try using a file manager app to peruse through the various folders in your phone, looking for DCIM or Pics or whatever that contains your photo collection. Once you find it, than you just need to get the Facebook app to detect and use that same folder.

 

[Hadron]

One thing to add: I just had a look at the Facebook app and how adding a photo from it works. And Facebook confuse things by giving you a list of places you can select images from, most of which are actual folders but one of which is called "Gallery" but actually shows images from all folders. So it's easy to see how it can give the impression that Gallery is a folder (it would have been more accurate to label this "All images", but Facebook aren't known for good software design...).

 

[Marilyn Johnston]

It might help straightening out your problem if you can visualize just how your photos are stored on your phone.

The photo files that make up your photo library reside within a folder. At one time the DCIM folder (Digital Camera IMages) was the default name, an industry wide common standard so webcams, video recorders, mobile devices all used DCIM as the default save location.
But unfortunately proprietary interests messed that all up for us so now it's a matter of depending on the operating system version, the manufacturer, and, the app the default storage folder for photos might be named DCIM, or Photos, or Pictures, or Images, or whatever.
And you'll have multiple default save folders as different apps may be using different ones. That's the issue that you're encountering -- you're seeing your photos using the Gallery app since it's using its chosen default save folder(s) but the Facebook app is looking in a different folder as its default.

Once you take into consideration all that nonsense, that requires you to start doing a little sleuthing to determine just which folder your photos are stored in, and then you need to configure things so your Gallery app and your Facebook app are working off that same folder. I know you stated you're not too tech savvy but this will help you in the long run to be a lot more comfortable to just fix these kinds of quirks that will pop up occasionally. Get familiar with the various options in your Pixel's Settings menu, and with the Settings/Options/Preferences menu in the apps you use a lot. You can really optimize your phone to suit your particular needs. It may appear to be a daunting task, but just approach it one step at time.
Anyway, check if the Camera app has a default folder option in the app's Settings menu. That might point you to which folder. If it doesn't, try using a file manager app to peruse through the various folders in your phone, looking for DCIM or Pics or whatever that contains your photo collection. Once you find it, than you just need to get the Facebook app to detect and use that same folder.

I found a setting for storage and within that an Images folder. That folder listed all the places photos are stored, there is a DCIM it only contains the picture files that comes with the phone. The Facebook folder is one I labeled to save the pictures I was posting. I next went to Facebook and when I tried to post a photo as a trial, the only choice is Gallery. I FOUND IT!! I went into the Facebook app info file and under permissions camera was listed as not allowed!

Thank you everyone who offered advice and tried to help. That help was sorely needed and gratefully accepted it pointed me in the right direction. Now Facebook sees every location of photos and all the folders are listed under Gallery. Again, many thanks.

 

[Dannydet]

Glad to hear you sorted it out!