Develop Bugs

Excluding Folders from Gallery

I've tried the .nomedia method but that doesn't seem to work in ICS. Does anyone know how to prevent a folder from being shown in the Gallery app?
Thanks.

I'd be interested in a solution to this too, don't really want all my album art and images from games etc cluttering the gallery.
Either a method to exclude certain folders or one to only include certain ones would do.

Tried .nomedia as well for my icons folder... doesn't seem to work.

This is driving me nuts. I tried the .nomedia thing too before I found this post. This is such an oversight for the gallery app.. it's pulling all of the downloaded icons/images from my mail app..

i was having issues with gallery not displaying thumbs & even wouldn't open some files. i ended up looking for an alternative and found this:
QuickPic
it is working well and you can specify folders to include/exclude.

Thanks - just downloaded this as well. Should work until someone can find a fix to the .nomedia thing..
Does anyone know what the Scrapbook Photos folder is? I think it may have come from picasa or G+.. but mine is empty and cannot be deleted in the regular gallery.

after putting the .nomedia, try rebooting, or downloading "sdrescan" from the market (free). the android media scanner indexes your files, but its often slow and doesn't update unless the camera puts something there. chances are it just hadn't known there was a .nomedia sucks, they'll probably have a fix eventually

cancerouspete said:
after putting the .nomedia, try rebooting, or downloading "sdrescan" from the market (free). the android media scanner indexes your files, but its often slow and doesn't update unless the camera puts something there. chances are it just hadn't known there was a .nomedia sucks, they'll probably have a fix eventually
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately it seems that there are certain folders where .nomedia will never work. So far I've found this with the downloads folder. No amount of rescanning or rebooting will stop images in the downloads folder appearing in the gallery.
I found that creating a subfolder with a dot in front of it (ie, .stuff) inside the download folder, moving the images into this folder, then rescanning will work.

you guys are honestly just unlucky. .nomedia works perfect for me. i even have a .nomedia file in my music folder and it works.

neok44 said:
you guys are honestly just unlucky. .nomedia works perfect for me. i even have a .nomedia file in my music folder and it works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which application did you use ?
Cheers~

The .nomedia method works for me too in the Gallery app.

no media does not work for me and its extremely frustrating...bump.

sluflyer06 said:
no media does not work for me and its extremely frustrating...bump.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After trying many solutions , finally this one is working for me : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.theronrogers.vaultyfree&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS50aGVyb25yb2dlcnMudmF1bHR5ZnJlZSJd
Good luck !
Cheers~

tossero said:
After trying many solutions , finally this one is working for me : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.theronrogers.vaultyfree&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS50aGVyb25yb2dlcnMudmF1bHR5ZnJlZSJd
Good luck !
Cheers~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looked to me like Vaulty physically moves the selected files to a folder and renames them so they're 'protected' because when i tried it out (it did work) but the location where the files were was not empty in root explorer.

voxigenboy said:
i was having issues with gallery not displaying thumbs & even wouldn't open some files. i ended up looking for an alternative and found this:
QuickPic
it is working well and you can specify folders to include/exclude.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Been using this for a bit now. Seems to work really well.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I second QuickPic. I used to use it on my HTC Magic because it was too slow for the 3D galley and I've used it ever since. Very efficient, fast, and allows you to zoom in to 100%.

Why don't you guys just put a dot in front of whatever filer its in? So like if the folder was "Pix" then make it ".Pix"....

nomedia is working for me too

It seems that Gallery mostly respects hidden (.foldername) folders and the .nomedia flag, but some process is alerting the Gallery to new folders and files as they are created, and that process does NOT respect hidden folders or .nomedia.
If you believe your problem is solved with the nomedia app, I suggest you move a photo into your hidden and/or .nomedia-ed folder and see if Gallery does not show it afterwards.
The only workaround that I have found is to Force Stop the system app called "Media Storage", clear it's cache and reboot. When media storage runs again at startup you'll find .nomedia and hidden folders are treated correctly (i.e. ignored) again. Beware though, my ringtone and notification tones were reset and I suspect it was a side-effect of doing this.

DELETES PICTURES!! -possible bug?

Really strange bug....follow me on this:
take pictures, pictures are automatically stored on phone in directory /mnt/sdcard/dcim/100andro....
move pictures to hidden directory called /mnt/ext-card/.specialuse
pictures move just fine, and are readily availible in hidden directory....until I restart the phone, at which point, only the pictures from this phone (not other files or videos) are deleted from the .specialuse folder, no warnings, no pop up...just GONE.
The strangest thing is, it only deletes the files I have added to that directory recently....not the older video files already present.
I have created a .specialuse folder on the phones memory at /mnt/sdcard/.specialuse and it does the same thing....
When I remove the . in the folder name (making it visible) and copy the picture and reset the phone...nothing happens (meaning it keeps the pictures like it should).
WHY does having a .directoryname cause the phone to automatically clear pictures from said directories? My X10 did not do this, only my ION does this.
Anyone have any ideas? Has anyone else had this happen? Thanks.

lmbea4 said:
Really strange bug....follow me on this:
take pictures, pictures are automatically stored on phone in directory /mnt/sdcard/dcim/100andro....
move pictures to hidden directory called /mnt/ext-card/.specialuse
pictures move just fine, and are readily availible in hidden directory....until I restart the phone, at which point, only the pictures from this phone (not other files or videos) are deleted from the .specialuse folder, no warnings, no pop up...just GONE.
The strangest thing is, it only deletes the files I have added to that directory recently....not the older video files already present.
I have created a .specialuse folder on the phones memory at /mnt/sdcard/.specialuse and it does the same thing....
When I remove the . in the folder name (making it visible) and copy the picture and reset the phone...nothing happens (meaning it keeps the pictures like it should).
WHY does having a .directoryname cause the phone to automatically clear pictures from said directories? My X10 did not do this, only my ION does this.
Anyone have any ideas? Has anyone else had this happen? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's because of the "dot" at the beginning of the folder name. Android uses this method by default for it's own purposes. It's a possibility that this phone is seeing that and it "confuses" it so to speak. Try this...
Make your folder and name it whatever you like, with NO punctuation in the name..
Now... Inside that folder, add a ".nomedia" file, but without the quotes
The photos should remain hidden in the gallery, but only visible in a file manager of sorts.
Quickpic in the market is an alternative gallery, that has the ability to hide folders, using the nomedia method. Works great.
...And now I'm gonna go check if all of mine are still there....

yeah but BUG
I agree, and that's what I had been doing after I noticed the deletions....but my x10 didn't behave that way, and my tablet (running 4.0.3) doesn't behave that way.....so, yes, this is a bug.

lmbea4 said:
I agree, and that's what I had been doing after I noticed the deletions....but my x10 didn't behave that way, and my tablet (running 4.0.3) doesn't behave that way.....so, yes, this is a bug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, not necessarily... Depending on how the overlay of Android is set up...The overlay from Sony I mean... It "could" be written to behave this way. Bear with me for a few days... I'm going to run some tests on my own phone with some pictures to see if I can reproduce the issue, and if so, try and find a solution.
If you like, I can use the same pictures you were, with the same folder names. That is completely up to you, as only you know what these are... But if you like, PM me, and I'll give you my email address, so we can resolve this.

CONFIRMED!!! At least on my phone... There is no pattern to it, that I can determine... I used several folders in my experiment. Some with, and some without a .nomedia file. And some with and without a dot before the folder name. At random, 5 different folders, still have their folder names, but have no pictures. All 4 possible scenarios were effected, and the fifth actually goes to a standard folder name with a .nomedia file in it.
So basically, my experiment proves nothing more than this is still unsolved, and not specific to one person.
(Just for sh**s and giggles, I am attempting to recover the lost files using some software I have... Just to see if its do-able, should this effect someone else... I'll report back later tomorrow)

Quick question, which file manager are you guys using to move these files? There was some update to Astro a while back that made my files get deleted when I moved them, anywhere regardless of the folder name on my Aria. Same thing still occurred on my Ion when I got it. Ever since I switched to ES File Explorer, I have not encountered this issue of deletion. Astro deleted not only pictures when I moved them, but ring tones, pdf, etc.
Sent from my LT28at

BUG!
Astro moves the files over just fine...and they are there..and accessible... until you reset the phone. Then...BAM, gone. It is disturbing to think that it may delete pictures in regular directories....BUG BUG BUG. hopefully the ICS update will address this.

That's exactly what I am talking about. They didn't disappear on the spot when I moved them. Everything seemed fine. Just give es a try and thrnreboot to see if it's the app or if it's the phone deleting your media.
Sent from my LT28at

iJudgeMAN said:
Quick question, which file manager are you guys using to move these files? There was some update to Astro a while back that made my files get deleted when I moved them, anywhere regardless of the folder name on my Aria. Same thing still occurred on my Ion when I got it. Ever since I switched to ES File Explorer, I have not encountered this issue of deletion. Astro deleted not only pictures when I moved them, but ring tones, pdf, etc.
Sent from my LT28at
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My experiment with this was done via a PC. these files were moved from my PC, via the USB cable, on a freshly formatted medium. I'm not sure when the deletion of these files occured, but it was within the first hour or so. the phone was NOT restarted, nor did anything FC.
I will be running more tests on this issue over the weekend to see if I can find some sort of pattern to this madness. I will be using various Galleries and File Managers, as well as my PC to perform these tests. I'll also be checking this time around to see if videos are effected at all. I will report back my findings on Monday...
Sidenote: The files that the phone deleted are very easily recoverable. the program I used (which I legally own) is called Easy Recovery Professional. Took about an hour to recover the 300+ deleted pictures.

[Q] Gallery Thumbnails

... are annoying the heck out of me!
I have 170mb of pictures, and the thumbnails for those pictures takes 1.00GB!!!! How is that possible?!
And if I delete the thumbnails (via SD Maid) it takes FOREVER to view the images in the gallery (obviously the system just re-create the thumbnails, but it takes WAY too long and leaves me with another 1GB of space lost!)
Are there any fixes for this? I was thinking freeze Gallery app with Titanium Backup (or completely uninstall it?) and use a 3rd party gallery like QuickPic to browse images. Would that work?
And assuming I do use the "freeze" function, do I need to freeze anything else besides the Gallery app to stop Android from creating more thumbnails??
Thanks!!
Addendum:
After looking through the folder, each thumbnail is indeed very small (8-35kb each). However, there are two files:
1) /storage/emulated/legacy/DCIM/.thumbnails/.thumbdata3-1763508120 (509.59 MB)
2) /storage/emulated/legacy/DCIM/.thumbnails/.thumbdata3--1967290299 (509.94 MB)
I have also noticed that in the .thumbnails directory there are two thumbnails for each picture I have on my phone. I believe there are duplicates of everything because I initially had all my pictures on my internal SD card, and when I moved them all to my external SD card to free up some space, the phone re-created the thumbnails (so the 1st set of thumbnails were the original thumbnails, and the 2nd set was created when I moved photos from internal SD to external SD).
Anyways... I would prefer not to even deal with thumbnails taking up this much space. Any recommendations on either reducing the amount of space the thumbnail files take, or if I should just eliminate the entire gallery/thumbnail setup completely and go with a 3rd party app that hopefully won't do this so inefficiently?
What are these two files? Can I delete them / move them?

Questions and help issues go in Q&A
Thread moved
FNM

Bump!
So the thumbnail file seems to always be 500mb or so. What an unnecessary waste... anyone else bothered enough by this to find a solution?
Thanks
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Pics in "Download" folder magically disappear?

Only happens on my wife's phone and not mine. She can download the pics from an email or text and after about 24 hours "poof" She just sees a black template for each one. Can't bring them up on PC and or QuikPic- You can see the templates in the Download Folder but no where else nor can you do anything with them other than delete. She is stock and its done this out of the box-
Thanks in advance for any help!

Anyone... thanks = )

Do the file sizes change?

Murasaki no Kaze said:
Do the file sizes change?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jut looked at her phone to verify and now the thumbnails are gone... I saved some more photos and will verify for you-
Also path is the typical... /storage/sdcard0/Download/NAME OF FILE.JPG
Thanks!

If she's plugging it into a mac (or any computer) it's probably set to auto copy then remove from phone.
Also check any apps that "sync" or auto-upload pics.

Just verified, she does not hook it up to any PC even the one at work... only charges off the wall.
Thanks

See if she's using any apps with her pics. Other than that just check to see if the file size is changing. It mostly sounds like something is moving/deleting the pics.

She was completely stock before last night putting the Quikpic on there to see if that program could still see them. Other than stock gallery and stock settings- I haven't found any setting within Gmail or Messaging or within Gallery or Settings that does anything weird to pictures unless I have missed something.
Thanks again for all of your help so far...

It won't be the gallery, you'd look to that for thumbnail problems.
Check if she uploads to facebook/instagram/etc.
If she does, HOW is she uploading? Web? App?

No uploading... she just keeps them in her Download Folder and eventually they turn into a black thumbnail template.
Whats funny is the ones that she moves to a folder (With a Category Name) no issue and they never dissapear... Only that folder...
I have removed everything and cleared up the directory and let the stock android file structure- re-create everything. its very weird...

Saving to a sdcard or internal?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Is the by chance a file in the directory called .nomedia I believe is what it's called? I get weird issues with pictures downloaded from time to time .I had the nomedia file deleted that and haven't had any issues with images since
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.

blaker13 said:
Saving to a sdcard or internal?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
internal. Default download directory.
mkfryan said:
Is the by chance a file in the directory called .nomedia I believe is what it's called? I get weird issues with pictures downloaded from time to time .I had the nomedia file deleted that and haven't had any issues with images since
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
.nomedia doesn't directly affect files. It's used to tell galleries/music players/etc not to bother reading the current folder. It will make stuff not appear in apps, but it doesn't touch files. There's no reason for that to be in a stock download folder, but never hurts to check.
Love the signature btw

Is she going into her "downloads" app in her app drawer and clearing that list out? I know I accidentally do that from time to time.
Try using File Manager to move them to external storage. Does she maybe have a cleaning app that clears out her downloads?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Alright so a little more info-
When she downloaded Quikpic to try and view the thumbnails the program actually removed them. So thats why the templates were deleted this time.
However, one thing is certain- The download is set to internal storage and the category folders are on the Micro SD.
So if she moves them to a category on the Micro SD they are fine and never turn into a black template/thumbnail. If she keeps them in the Download Folder however, they eventually turn to a black thumbnail ans stay there until maually deleted... its like the picture disapears and the thumbnail looses contact with the original file.
-Thanks again for everyones help so far... :good:

Will check this tonight... .nomedia thing-

Be sure to ask what thenewguy1 asked.
If all else fails, she can just install a download manager and have it intercept and save the pictures to a different folder.
Also, does this ONLY happen to pics? No other file types are affected?

Alright so some wild updates... may be onto something (She doesn't clear downloads and she doesn't have the no image file)
However... it happened again yesterday- Here is the scenario on how it occurs.
She has an email with a image in Gmail-
Saves the picture-
File is saved in Download Folder and visible within Gallery Download Folder-
She then takes the email within Gmail and moves it to a folder-
Several minutes later this happens to the image-
Blacked out thumbnail and the size and data or there but no image-
Unable to see it at all or explore for it-
It gets better, if she moves it back to the Inbox or where it was saved orig the image will reappear-
So in theory its like it saves the shortcut to the image and when the image is moved the shortcut defaults to blank template.
What causes this??? LOL Thanks = )

So she's saving from the gmail app? Or from gmail web?
She clicks on pic -> menu -> save ?
Is that how she's saving them?
In trying to simulate your problem, somehow my thumbnail cache got screwed lol, cleared through quickpic and it seems to be working fine, haven't seen it black out yet... for me it doesn't give me the save option, it shows me the picture, and if I check the folder or gallery, it's already been saved to disk.
Now gmails tripping lol
Try clearing data and see if this problem persists.

senfinger said:
Alright so some wild updates... may be onto something (She doesn't clear downloads and she doesn't have the no image file)
However... it happened again yesterday- Here is the scenario on how it occurs.
She has an email with a image in Gmail-
Saves the picture-
File is saved in Download Folder and visible within Gallery Download Folder-
She then takes the email within Gmail and moves it to a folder-
Several minutes later this happens to the image-
Blacked out thumbnail and the size and data or there but no image-
Unable to see it at all or explore for it-
It gets better, if she moves it back to the Inbox or where it was saved orig the image will reappear-
So in theory its like it saves the shortcut to the image and when the image is moved the shortcut defaults to blank template.
What causes this??? LOL Thanks = )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is she saving it? I am also trying to replicate the issue. I am opening the attachment, hitting menu and save. I have moved the email but the image is still working fine. If she uses file manager to move them to another folder does it also corrupt the file? Is she somehow saving a link or shortcut? I am about lost
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

[Q] SD Card shares the same disk with os

Hello everyone..
So I while managing pictures on my SD card, I noticed something that is making dumping/importing pictures to my PC, a nightmare.
I think I have a solution, but the app (MoveToSdcard), is giving the following message: "SD Card shares the same disk with os"
Looking at some of the file/folder structure, I think I know what's happening, but I don't know how to fix without breaking stuff.
What I'm trying to do is move all apps that will every have pictures associated with them, to the SDCard. This will allow me to export (and worry) only pictures from the SDCard and delete them like I normally would with my iPhone.
Anyone know of a way to resolve this or have a suggestion on how to achieve what I'm trying to do?
Why do I want to dump my pictures? I put them on a NAS, back them up to various cloud services. I also place my none mobile photo work on this NAS an upload them as well.

droidmyworld said:
Hello everyone..
So I while managing pictures on my SD card, I noticed something that is making dumping/importing pictures to my PC, a nightmare.
I think I have a solution, but the app (MoveToSdcard), is giving the following message: "SD Card shares the same disk with os"
Looking at some of the file/folder structure, I think I know what's happening, but I don't know how to fix without breaking stuff.
What I'm trying to do is move all apps that will every have pictures associated with them, to the SDCard. This will allow me to export (and worry) only pictures from the SDCard and delete them like I normally would with my iPhone.
Anyone know of a way to resolve this or have a suggestion on how to achieve what I'm trying to do?
Why do I want to dump my pictures? I put them on a NAS, back them up to various cloud services. I also place my none mobile photo work on this NAS an upload them as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm having a hard time understanding specifically what you are trying to do. But if the end goal is back up pictures to your NAS then I suggest downloading "Sweet Home! Alfa". It will allow you to select which albums to backup and automatically do it for you based on preference (for example, I have mine setup to do it when I'm connected to my home network and plug my phone in to charge".
You can set it to automatically delete photos off you device once backed up too if you want. Managing albums can be done through the stock gallery app or through a file explorer.
Hope this helps.
BTW, /sdcard actually refers to internal storage. So if you are trying to move apps to /sdcard, that it why you are getting the error. You are telling it to move an app from internal storage to internal storage which doesn't make sense to the app

Hi Artimis! Yea. I'm sorry about how I laid out the thread. Not clear at all. Basically, there are pictures everywhere
I use several apps - Instagram, Photoshop, SquareDroid, Afterfocus, Lapse It, Viva Video, etc. Each one of these apps either place the completed edits/export in their own folder, located in the app's directory, respectively.
When I pull out the SDCard and put it into my machine to dump/export them, not all the pictures are there, because some of the pictures are in their respective app exported folders and those are on the Internal SD.
This now forces me to hunt around and hope I've located all the possible directories and pictures.
If Instead relocate the apps to the SD card, the export folders would also be there, making it one less and easy step to ensure that all possible pictures/directories are accounted for.
Make any sense? Sorry about that.
Now the app you recommended takes it to a whole other level! This is awesome! and it detects new photo directories, created anywhere on the phone or SD card! This more or less solves my whole problem! WOW! Thank you!
As for the whole SD thing, I'm confused. Not a big deal though since all pictures and videos (all big in size) taken using XCam end up on the true SDCard. All the other pictures scattered about are not large in size and I'm not concerned about it. It's just a pain to hunt them down and dump/export them.
This app you suggested though is perfect and solves my problem, and then some!
Thanks Artimis!

wouldn't it be easier to just use Dropbox's import feature or even their auto saving of pictures? Of course letting G+ save them is also a more practical solution, I use both, and would be less time consuming

Yes, I use them as well. They work well. The goal is not to move away from any of them either. The goal is to save them locally to my NAS and at the same time, recover the space back on the device/SDCard.
The program that Artimis recommended takes care of all these issues.
I'm good! Thanks!

Same/Similar Problem
Whenever I try to install apps on to my SD card it says "SDcard share the same disk with os" and won't let me transfer apps.

Tyfighter98 said:
Whenever I try to install apps on to my SD card it says "SDcard share the same disk with os" and won't let me transfer apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does your phone actually have an sdcard in it (it would show up as something like /external_SD through the file system). As I mentioned before, /sdcard actually refers to the phones internal storage. It is a symlinked directory that emulates an sdcard but is mapped to /data/media.
So you will get this error with an app trying to move something from /data/app to /sdcard because it is actually trying to move it to /data/media/.. which doesn't do any good.
If you do have an actual external sdcard (/external_SD) then the problem could be due to the write protection changes implemented in kit kat. There are threads on how to fix this if you are rooted.

I do I have an SD card in my tablet and I supposedly already did an SD card fix for Kit Kat but I will look into it thanks.

i have micromax canvas juice 2 .... i inserted 16gb sd card but iam not able to move apps to my sd card ..... please help me

So how to make it understand I have to sent it to ad card and read data from there..