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Help Gallery problem

R

Rick Morrison

Newbie
Gallery problem
I'm new to the Android community so this may be a stupid question. I just bought a new Droid Bionic and, so far, love it. My gallery problem is that when I open the gallery I get the pictures I've taken along with about 270 .png files of icon type stuff. My question . . . how can I get rid of all the stuff? Does it need to be there?

Thanks . . . I'll probably have quite a few more stupid questions as I move from the Blackberry world to the Droid world.

Rick Morrison
 
Welcome.

The solution to your issue is rather easy, you just have to know the trick.
Android uses a very small file to indicate that pictures in a specific folder should not show up as media in the gallery etc.

The file is called .nomedia

All you need to do is copy that file into the folder that contains the .png files you do not want to see. The tough part is going to be figuring out where the offending images are. The stock gallery program is not very forthcoming in letting you know where a given image is stored. You will probably have to poke around in different folders until you find the right one. Personally, I hate the stock gallery and use it very rarely. I use an app called QuickPic (available for free in the market) to view images. It is much easier IMHO.

Connect your phone to a PC via USB, select USB Mass Storage as the mode on your phone and the PC should show both the internal (called MOT) and external (called SDCARD-ext) SD card storage locations. Open SDCARD-ext and go to ANDROID>DATA. You should see the file .nomedia there. Make a copy of it and paste that file into any folders with pictures or sounds or videos that you want to not show in the gallery or music programs etc.

You can also do the same thing without a PC if you like. In the app drawer open the FILES program, select SD Card, open ANDROID>DATA, copy the .nomedia file and paste where appropriate.
 
QuickPic also has an option to hide the folders you don't want to see using the .nomedia file mentioned, select and go into the folder from the list and from the menu select hide
 
Thanks for the information. I have found the files . . . They are two places. In the drive MOT DCIM/.thumbnails. In that file they are all jpeg files. In the other drive they are in Saver Pictures directory and are .png files. I copied .nomedia into both directrories but I still see them when I start gallery. I assume I'm seeing the .jpg version but why. Any idead

I downloaded quickpic and I don't see them with it.
 
Rick Morrison said:
Thanks for the information. I have found the files . . . They are two places. In the drive MOT DCIM/.thumbnails. In that file they are all jpeg files. In the other drive they are in Saver Pictures directory and are .png files. I copied .nomedia into both directrories but I still see them when I start gallery. I assume I'm seeing the .jpg version but why. Any idead

I downloaded quickpic and I don't see them with it.
Click to expand...
A reboot may be required or go in and delete the gallery data. That should let it re-discover everything.
 
I rebooted but still see them with gallery. Do those files need to be in DCIM/.thumbnails file as jpegs? If I delete them from there and leave them in the Saved Pictures (where they are .png files) is there something that won't work right?

Thanks
 
Based on this discussion I installed QuickPic and am very pleased with it. It finally provides reasonable control of the collection of images.

QuickPic allows you to look at folders that are not hidden or folders that are either hidden or not hidden. You can also mark a folder as hidden or unhidden and it will insert or remove the magical file to do it.

I currently have 15 folders with the magical file. Two folders that have the magical file show up in Gallery and do not show up in QuickPic. The solution was to use QuickPic to Unhide them both and then Hide them both. Now they are hidden in Gallery and QuickPic.

... Thom
 
Thom Little said:
I currently have 15 folders with the magical file. Two folders that have the magical file show up in Gallery and do not show up in QuickPic. The solution was to use QuickPic to Unhide them both and then Hide them both. Now they are hidden in Gallery and QuickPic.

... Thom
Click to expand...
Nice trick!
 
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