All the photos you take with your smartphone end up in your device’s photo gallery. Inquisitive eyes could easily see images that they are not supposed to see.

Perhaps you have snapshots with sensitive information, gift ideas for a loved one, or just endless memes that you want to remove from your main photo roll. Whatever the reason, it’s easy to hide photos from gallery.

If you want to know how to hide photos on Android, read on!

Native tools for hiding photos

Two mainstream phone manufacturers, Samsung and LG, have built-in privacy tools that you can use to hide photos.

Samsung

If you have a Samsung phone with Android Nougat 7.0 or higher, you can take advantage of the benefits of Samsung Secure folder Specialty. This allows you to keep private files, pictures and even apps in a separate password-protected area.

To set up the Secure Folder for the first time, go to Settings> Lock screen and security> Secure folder . You need to sign in with your Samsung account.

After signing in, your device will ask you to choose your preferred locking method. Once the process is complete, you can access the secure folder from your app drawer.

To hide photos in the safe folder, open the app and tap add files .

LG

The process of hiding pictures on Android when you have an LG device is a little different.

This time, start with the heading To Settings> Fingerprints & Security> Content Lock . The phone asks you to secure the function with a PIN, a password or a fingerprint scan.

Now go to your phone’s default gallery app. Select all of the photos you want to hide and tap Menu> More> Lock . You can also lock entire folders of pictures if you want.

If you tapped it Lock , the photos / folders disappear from the library. To view them, scroll to Menu> Show locked files . Enter Your security credentials and photos will reappear.

Note: Content lock is not available on all devices.

Use a file manager to hide photos from the gallery

If you don’t have a Samsung or LG phone, don’t despair. You still have options, but the process is a little more complicated.

You can either use a file manager to perform some tricks or rely on third-party tools that specialize in hiding content. Some third-party gallery apps have this functionality as well. First, let’s examine two file manager tricks to hide files.

Create a new folder

Before you can start, you need to have a good quality file manager installed on your phone. There are many to choose from; If you’re not sure which one to download, check out our guide to the best file managers on the Play Store.

Once you’ve made a decision and installed a file manager, launch the app. You’ll need to create a new folder starting with a period (for example, .Private files or .Secret ).

Next, move any photos you want to hide to the newly created folder. The method for doing this varies from app to app, but usually you get the option if you long press on the file you want to move.

Any files you move will no longer appear in the Gallery app. Without going into too much detail, this is because folders starting with a period are not scanned by the phone’s software.

Create a “.nomedia” file

If you want to hide hundreds of photos, it’s inconvenient to move them all around manually. Instead, it’s easier to a. to create .no media File in the folders you want to obfuscate.

When your phone sees one .no media File in a folder, the contents of the folder will not be loaded when your directory is scanned.

You will still need a third-party file manager app to create the file. Use it to navigate to the folder you want to hide and create a new file in the directory called .no media (Be sure to include the point). The file doesn’t have to have any content – the file name is the important part.

To undo the operation, simply delete the .no media File.

Warning: While these two methods hide content from the native photo library, the images are still visible in any file manager. They are not password protected.

Third party apps for hiding pictures on Android

If fiddling around in a file manager app sounds too cumbersome, you can use a third-party app that specializes in hiding photos.

Here are three of the best:

1. Safe

Vaulty has established itself as the leading content hiding app. Hundreds of thousands of users have left a positive review on the Google Play Store.

It comes with its own photo gallery. Any photos you lock will only be visible in them. The gallery also allows you to create multiple vaults, meaning you can view different sets of photos for different people.

All of your content is password protected and even your media is backed up so you are safe if you lose your phone.

Download: safe (Free premium version available)

2. Keepsafe Vault

Keepsafe Vault is Vaulty’s biggest competitor. The range of functions is very similar; All of your photos are password protected and encrypted, and you can view your photos in Cloud-Secure the memory of the app.

The app also has a feature that hides the screen icon so no one who picks up your phone knows that you are hiding something.

After all, it has one Snapchat-like self-destruct function that allows you to share photos that delete themselves after 20 seconds with other users of the app.

Download: Keepsafe safe (Free premium version available)

3. Hide something

Hide Something is another solid way to hide pictures on Android. Again, you can hide photos behind PINs and passwords and all your pictures will be backed up to Google Drive.

The app also has a couple of unique features. First of all, you can use the share menu to save any file or folder on your phone to its vault. Second, the app won’t appear in your recently used apps list.

Download: Hide something (Free premium version available)

4. LockMyPix

LockMyPix uses standard AES encryption to hide an unlimited number of photos or videos on your Android phone or tablet.

Some of the other features of the app that help make it stand out include a ability to create a fake decoy safe with a separate PIN, support for photos on your SD card, encrypted backups, and support for GIF files.

Download: LockMyPix (Free premium version available)

Easily hide photos on Android

We have walked you through a number of tricks for anyone looking to hide photos on Android. Samsung and LG owners can likely stick with their phone’s native tool. If your phone’s Gallery app doesn’t have secure folder support, you’ll need to turn to a third-party app instead.

Image source: GaudiLab / Depositphotos