Question Samsung Gallery App

[Jhatn]

On 6/9, I updated my Samsung Galaxy A35 5G phone to Android 15 (One UI v7.0).

Yesterday I received a notice from an app I've NEVER used before & so I did not open the app until finding out it was a notice from the Samsung Gallery App, that came pre-installed.
Since I had NEVER opened the Samsung Gallery App before:
1. Why did I get a notice from it?
2. Why did it automatically create some Story for me?
3. How did my pictures from my SD Card get synced to Samsung (I don't sync anything to Samsung Cloud)?
4. How do I stop my pictures from going into the Samsung Gallery App & how do I DELETE the Samsung Gallery App?

 

[SpookDroid]

The Gallery app cannot be deleted (it's a system app, part of the OS, and needed for media handling). It will automatically read any picture/video files on your phone and external media (again, part of the OS, nothing nefarious about it, that's just needed for media to be used by the phone... This app is just a 'portal' to see it).

The Stories option can be turned off from the Gallery's Settings (alongside the notifications for any story suggestions). The app will never upload data to Samsung (or OneDrive, the other option on Samsung phones) unless you activate that option (clearly visible inside the app's Settings).

 

[B. Diddy]

This kind of thing isn't that unusual. The update likely included new features in the Gallery app, like automatically creating Stories. I just opened my Gallery app on my Galaxy Tab S9 FE+, and saw that "Auto create stories" is defaulted to ON. However, the "Sync with OneDrive" option is off.

Are you certain your SD card photos are synced to OneDrive, or is it just that the Gallery was utilizing your locally saved photos to create the Story?

 

[Jhatn]

@SpookDroid, @B. Diddy

Thank you for the replies.
I've never used the Samsung Gallery app before & all pictures & videos I take using my phone get saved to the SD Card & NO WHERE else. I do not use any sync function & definitely not OneDrive.

So is there a way to stop my pictures & videos from getting collected in the Samsung Gallery app?
Looking at the Storage section of the Gallery app's Info page, if I Clear Cache, Clear Data & tap on Force Stop; will that put the app into a 'sleeping mode' so that it will stop being active?

 

[B. Diddy]

Force Stop will most likely just temporarily stop the app. It may open again in the background based on how the system operates. It doesn't look like the app can be Disabled either.

You could look into a solution like Package Disabler Pro, but I'm not sure if disabling the Gallery might possibly break something else.

 

[SpookDroid]

Like I mentioned before, you CANNOT stop the Gallery App from showing you your media on the phone; it is a part of the system. You can opt to use a different Gallery app, but the 'innards' needed for other apps to work as well are baked into the Gallery app itself and will be needed for even others to work.

Unless any cloud options are enabled (and they're all opt-in), the Gallery app isn't collecting any data on you or anything. If you disable all AI and story features for this app, they won't process that.

Same thing with the File Manager app from Samsung. While you'll see all files on your device, if you disable it, other apps that need data access may not work.

 

[Sizzers]

Or you could always purchase a Nothing phone where strangely - to me - you can disable their gallery app and view images via a file manager.

 

[B. Diddy]

On a Pixel phone, you can also disable Google Photos (which is the default gallery app) in favor of any 3rd party gallery app.

 

[Jhatn]

As SpookDroid has mentioned, I cannot disable the Samsung Gallery app. But on Sunday I did hold the app's icon, pressed the i that shows-up & went into Gallery Settings. Sync with OneDrive is off & I turned off ALL settings:



I also:
Blocked all 'Notifications'
Turned off most 'Permissions' (except Photos & Videos, I am not allowed to turn those off)
Turned off 'Manage app if unused'
Turned off 'Open supported links' under 'Set as default'
'Allow background data usage' & 'Allow data usage while Data Saver is on' are both turned off
'Battery' is set to Restricted
Under 'Storage', I pressed 'Clear cache' & 'Clear data', then double-checked settings above were reinstated
'Appear on top' is turned off
And 'Change system settings' is set to Not Allowed
I then tapped 'Force Stop' & closed the app.

But today, when I took a picture & opened the Gallery app from PhotoZen Studio (that I've always used without any problems), guess what happened ... my picture is NOWHERE to be found.
So I opened the Google Files app & my picture is indeed on my SD Card, but I can open it ONLY through the Samsung Gallery app ... DAMMIT!

The only setting in the Camera app that makes sense in this scenario, is 'Storage Location' & that is set to SD Card.
So I am stumped. If I cannot STOP the Samsung Gallery from collecting my pictures & videos, how do I make sure all pictures & videos go into the Gallery app from PhotoZen Studio (the way they always had before the Android 15 update)?

I'm going to contact PhotoZen Studio to find out if they can help me, but should I also bring-up the problem I'm having to Android or Samsung? I don't anticipate either company will help me, but it may be worth a try.

 

[B. Diddy]

Go to Settings>Apps, select PhotoZen Studio, then Permissions, and see if there's an option there to give permission to access the SD card.

 

[joeldf]

If I cannot STOP the Samsung Gallery from collecting my pictures & videos...

The Gallery app is NOT "collecting" your pictures. It is merely listing the photos you have on the device. All of them.

All "Gallery" or "Photo" type apps do this on Android whether by Samsung, Google, Asus, or any other third party app in the Play Store. IPhones too, by the way. Even BlackBerry did it on their own OS with their own "Media" app.

There is no "collecting" going on. No more than the File Manager is "collecting" your files that it lists for you when you navigate your phone's folder structure.

There's nothing nefarious going on.

 

[Jhatn]

@

Go to Settings>Apps, select PhotoZen Studio, then Permissions, and see if there's an option there to give permission to access the SD card.

I went into Settings>Apps, but there is no PhotoZen Studio, but there is a Gallery (PhotoZen Studio's) listed; which I've double-checked & all my settings are still in-place. I even turned on 'Show System Apps' & looked through anything related to the Camera & (Samsung's) Gallery.

I wonder if the big problem is under-the-hood. Where the Camera is sending photos to the Gallery, but since both Samsung's & PhotoZen's apps are named Gallery, that's where this mix-up is & the Camera is sending pictures only to Samsung's Gallery.

The Gallery app is NOT "collecting" your pictures. It is merely listing the photos you have on the device. All of them.

Sorry.
By 'collecting', I mean pictures I take are going into the Gallery App so I can easily access them.
Not 'collecting' as in Samsung is looking at the pictures I take.

 

[SpookDroid]

If you stopped any of the Samsung Gallery app processes (as stated in previous replies), ALL OTHER 3RD PARTY APPS MAY FAIL. I suggest to just turn off notifications/AI options if you don't want those suggestions from it, but don't stop or block the app at all. It is needed for others to work.

Now, for the pictures. The camera app you're using saves it to wherever location that's set to. Nothing to do with the Gallery or the File Manager app. It's the camera app alone.

When the picture is saved to whatever location the camera app saved it to, media apps can show it. The only apps that have automatic access to SD cards are system apps (i.e. Samsung Gallery and Samsung File Manager). 3rd party apps need the aforementioned to be active and may need additional permission to access both your internal and external file locations. To check if the app you want to use for this has them active, long-press on the app and tap the 'i' icon. Then tap Permissions and check that Camera and/or Photos and videos are active (or similar permissions for Storage in the case of SD cards).

Again, the system apps should not be 'touched'. If you don't use them, just don't use them. It breaks more things that most people realize.

 

[Jhatn]

@SpookDroid, is there a way to update the Samsung Gallery?
I want to set it back to the defaults, but cannot remember which settings were On & Off. I went into the Play Store>Manage>Samsung Gallery & I see this warning: "This app isn't compatible with your device anymore. Contact the developer for more info."
But the only email address is: [email protected]

I've checked the camera app & pictures & video get saved to my SD Card.
I've checked the Photozen Gallery app & it does have access to the SD Card.

 

[joeldf]

I want to set it back to the defaults, but cannot remember which settings were ON.

Easiest way is to go to "Settings" > "Apps" > scroll down to "Gallery" and tap it > tap "Storage" > at the bottom right, tap "Clear cache", then on the bottom left tap "Clear data". Clearing the data resets the app to defaults. Clearing the cache first just insures that previous settings aren't somehow held in memory. I don't think they are when "Clear data" is pressed, but I just like to be sure.

I don't think any Samsung system app updates come from the Play Store. They would come from the Galaxy Store app.

 

[SpookDroid]

As joeldf mentioned, that would reset your Gallery's settings. However, the issue you're seeing, has nothing to do with the Gallery app. At all. Again, the Gallery app is just a 'portal' to seeing media-only files and see them organized by 'albums/folders'. It doesn't affect where things are saved, where pictures are saved, where videos are saved (let alone from non-Samsung apps). It only displays what's on your phone.

If the Gallery app you're trying to use isn't displaying the pictures you want, and you know those pictures are saved correctly to either internal/SD card (you can check this with the File Manager or My Files in the case of Samsung phones and see that the actual file is saved and to where), then the app doesn't have permission to display that info. You can break this down first to internal VS SD card by changing your camera app's save path to internal memory instead of SD card. If doing this your Gallery app now displays correctly, you know the issue is with permissions for external storage. If it doesn't, then the problem is more generalized. Newer Android versions do ask you if you want to let an app acces all media or just a sub-set, so you may have done the latter instead at some point. If that's the case, doing joel's suggestion but with the 3rd party Gallery app should help.

 

[Jhatn]

Thank you for all the help & instructions everyone. The problem has been fixed.

1. I verified that the camera is saving ALL pictures & videos to my SD Card
2. I went into the Samsung Gallery Info to Clear Cache & Data, which reset the settings back to Default
3. I Updated the Photozen Gallery app (I did email them (on 6/20) but have not heard back from them about this issue)

Everything is working the way I like it again.
With some tinkering, I did figure out that if I turn off all Samsung's Gallery Settings (from screenshot above), except for the 'Auto play motion photos' & 'Select essential albums' as well as giving permissions to 'Music, audio, photos & videos', I have no problem with the Photozen Gallery app.

It's strange how the built-in Samsung Gallery app effects the Photozen Gallery app.

 

[SpookDroid]

Glad you got it working! But like we said before, it's not 'strange', it's intentional. The Gallery app has processes that are needed in the OS for other apps to work.

Think of it like your Internet Provider. You can choose to use the router in their modem/router combo (the modem is what gives you the actual Internet connection), or you can connect a 3rd party router to it and use that. But if you just take out the modem, then any router wouldn't work because the modem is needed. Hope this makes sense.

 

[Jhatn]

Glad you got it working! But like we said before, it's not 'strange', it's intentional. The Gallery app has processes that are needed in the OS for other apps to work.

Think of it like your Internet Provider. You can choose to use the router in their modem/router combo (the modem is what gives you the actual Internet connection), or you can connect a 3rd party router to it and use that. But if you just take out the modem, then any router wouldn't work because the modem is needed. Hope this makes sense.

Yes, that does make sense