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Any way to make people stay out of my Photos without a third-party app?

G

Grendell100

Newbie
I have some personal photos that I don't want other people to see there, and some of my friends are just freaking nosy and annoying, and whenever someone lends them their phone, they always go for the gallery.
Any way to lock it with a fingerprint, for example? Ideally without any third-party apps.
 
Unless your Gallery app has a "lock" setting of its own (as above) there's no way of locking the Gallery app with a fingerprint without using a third party app (not sure why the aversion to third party apps - there's nothing special about the ones the manufacturer installs themselves). So a few suggestions:

1) Use a third party app to lock the gallery (there are a number of them, I've never used one so can't make a recommendation.

2) Use a Gallery app that allows you to hide or lock folders (but beware of easily visible settings that allow you to unhide them). You may have to disable the stock gallery app to stop them using that instead ("hide" generally creates a .nomedia file, see below, so will work with all gallery apps, but other options may not).

3) Put those photos in a separate folder and stick a file called ".nomedia" in there - that will stop it showing up in the Gallery app (you'll still be able to find them with a file browser).

4) Don't lend the phone to the nosy so-and-so's.
 
ocnbrze said:
what device do you have? i have a note 8 and i can create a secure folder that only i can access with my fingerprint. i can put almost any file in it. i can put things like photos and videos, music, and documents in the folder.

https://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/what-is/secure-folder/
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I have Nokia 7.1. It's vanilla Android, I don't think it has an option like this, but I'll check it anyway. Thanks!

Hadron said:
Unless your Gallery app has a "lock" setting of its own (as above) there's no way of locking the Gallery app with a fingerprint without using a third party app (not sure why the aversion to third party apps - there's nothing special about the ones the manufacturer installs themselves). So a few suggestions:

1) Use a third party app to lock the gallery (there are a number of them, I've never used one so can't make a recommendation.

2) Use a Gallery app that allows you to hide or lock folders (but beware of easily visible settings that allow you to unhide them). You may have to disable the stock gallery app to stop them using that instead ("hide" generally creates a .nomedia file, see below, so will work with all gallery apps, but other options may not).

3) Put those photos in a separate folder and stick a file called ".nomedia" in there - that will stop it showing up in the Gallery app (you'll still be able to find them with a file browser).

4) Don't lend the phone to the nosy so-and-so's.
Click to expand...
I use Google's Photos app and I'm quite happy with it. I like the automatic backups.

It's not that I despise third-party apps, I was just hoping there would be a setting somewhere that would let me lock apps without installing anything. It's a shame Android doesn't allow something like this by default, if you ask me.
Installing some app for it seems to be the easiest option right now, so I'll probably to that.

Thanks!
 
It's not really what Android does: almost everything Android does is actually done by an app, including things like the desktops and app drawer, which are provided by an app called a "launcher" rather than by the operating system. So another way of doing this would be to use an alternative launcher which could lock certain apps. Unfortunately I don't know one of those offhand: I know launchers that can hide apps from the app drawer, but don't offhand know one that can require a PIN or fingerprint to access an app, though it would be technically possible for someone to write one so possibly there is one out there.
 
Brian706 said:
You can try using the screen pinning feature. Basically you go to your recent apps/overview screen and you can pin an app there. That makes it so the person using your phone cannot leave said app without inputting the password/fingerprint.
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Very useful feature, thank you!

If anyone's interested in this, here's how to turn it on, it's not activated by default: https://support.google.com/android/answer/6118421?hl=en
 
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