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I have a folder on my SD card that I don't want images to appear from. Is there a means to exclude certain directories?
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA Premium App
Put an empty file called .nomedia in the directory.
This one works well for me - makes the process easier:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.studiokuma.nomedia
What kind of images don't you want to show up in your gallery?
The .nomedia method should work for you, if not you can always rename the folder with a "." at the beginning to make it hidden
Folder name examples:
.pr0n / .dontlookhere / .ignore
kyouko said:
What kind of images don't you want to show up in your gallery?
The .nomedia method should work for you, if not you can always rename the folder with a "." at the beginning to make it hidden
Folder name examples:
.pr0n / .dontlookhere / .ignore
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Click to collapse
.nomedia works for me, as far as keeping stuff out of the gallery. Being all grown up in my computer usage, I choose to not let my computing devices hide stuff from me, so that .folder thingy doesn't work for me (and pictures in those .folders without a .nomedia file still seem to make their way into my gallery).
I do have a .stuff folder for my .porn though... Keeps it up near the top of the list...
how about the hideitpro app from the market? it's actually pretty cool. opens up as an audio manager, then you put in a password and there you have all the hidden files you want. not just pics...just an fyi
Install the app Just Pictures and ignore the folders you don't want to see.
The .nomedia "solution" prevents the album art to display in the media players.
I use the app QuickPic from the Market, and in the app you can choose which folders you want include and exclude. Pretty useful. You don't have the pretty 3-D effects from the default Gallery app but it's so much faster.
You can do the same thing with Fishbowl Gallery. You can set default albums, as well as hide albums. However, this still doesn't prevent someone from stumbling upon the default gallery app. The best solutions are either .nomedia, or do not have media on your phone that you do not want prying eyes to see. Alternatively, while cumbersome, you can use androzip or unrar pro to zip the material in question. Of course, by zipping your files, you can add the additional layer of security by encrypting it, if you're the paranoid sort.
Sent via Tapatalk on CM7.0.0-Vision Stable.
I remember this method. Any one know if the older file deletion ever got fixed with 2.2.1 or later?
If you don't know what I'm talking about here's a quick rundown.
You put the .nomedia file in a folder with pictures, upon reboot all those pictures are deleted. This had something to do with them already being scanned once and them being older than the .nomedia file so instead of ignoring them it deletes them. Something along those lines (anyone have the link to the original bug report from back in '08 or '09?).
Anyway, if it hasn't been fixed you've been warned, you stand a good chance of losing all media in those folders. So backup those files - but you knew that already
The easiest remedy to this is to remove the files, rename the folder to .whatever or insert the .nomedia file. Reboot. Then throw the files back onto the sdcard. That should eliminate any issues.
I've used the .nomedia solution awhile back to get icons, cover art, etc out of my gallery and it worked just fine... nothing was deleted (Droid X).
IIRC, I did have to clear the gallery app's cache to get it to "forget" about media that it had already found; on first lauch after clearing it's cache, expect it to be slow as it re-scans your device / sd card (..rebooting didn't work to clear the cach on my device... had to clear it via settings > application > manage apps..)
.nomedia file solution works
KCRic said:
I remember this method. Any one know if the older file deletion ever got fixed with 2.2.1 or later?
If you don't know what I'm talking about here's a quick rundown.
You put the .nomedia file in a folder with pictures, upon reboot all those pictures are deleted. This had something to do with them already being scanned once and them being older than the .nomedia file so instead of ignoring them it deletes them. Something along those lines (anyone have the link to the original bug report from back in '08 or '09?).
Anyway, if it hasn't been fixed you've been warned, you stand a good chance of losing all media in those folders. So backup those files - but you knew that already
The easiest remedy to this is to remove the files, rename the folder to .whatever or insert the file. Reboot. Then throw the files back onto the sdcard. That should eliminate any issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The .nomedia file solution works fine for me on Android 2.3.3.
The issue you mentioned is therefore fixed (nothing file was deleted unexpectedly).
Reboot was also necessary so that the native photo gallery app does not display the icons/pics any longer for the folders where I added the .nomedia file.
Furthermore, this works also for the music files.
(I use also TapeMachine app, and wanted to avoid that the sounds I recorded are listed in the Music Player).
If I place a .nomedia file in a directory, does that exclude all of its subdirectories from the gallery, as well?
Yes, it does. I just placed a .nomedia file in my /Music folder on my extsdcard and all the pictures in my albums are gone after a reboot.
UPDATE: I just tied this on my tablet (running 4.4.2) and it did not need a reboot. Gallery adjusted automatically. It was a folder on the extsdcard - and since 4.4.x restricts access to the sdcard, it stands to reason it saw the file placed and adjust the library automatically.
NiveusLuna said:
If I place a .nomedia file in a directory, does that exclude all of its subdirectories from the gallery, as well?
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Click to collapse
Inside the folder DCIM /.thumbnails there is a file .Thumbdata3 of 710MB!
I tried to delete it but it always returns the same size.
I also tried to delete all the photos from the DCIM folder but nothing has changed!
How is it that the file has a size so big?
MarkAndroid said:
Inside the folder DCIM /.thumbnails there is a file .Thumbdata3 of 710MB!
I tried to delete it but it always returns the same size.
I also tried to delete all the photos from the DCIM folder but nothing has changed!
How is it that the file has a size so big?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's probably the thumbnail data for your pictures. I'm assuming you have quite a few...?
I deleted all the images.
The folder .thumbnails no contains preview as I deleted everything.
There remains only the file to 711 MB
MarkAndroid said:
I deleted all the images.
The folder .thumbnails no contains preview as I deleted everything.
There remains only the file to 711 MB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As the first reply already stated, this is a thumbnail file that is generated on the basis of all pictures on your device. Deleting all thumbnails doesn't really help, because the thumbnail cache will regenerate itself. If you want to diminish it in terms of size, you'll have to remove the actual pictures on your device (be it wallpapers, family pictures, Reddit downloads or porn). Only that will lessen the numbers of thumbnails generated and thus the size of this file.
As I said I deleted all the real pictures and not just the thumbnails!
When I open the gallery there is no picture or video!
I also raised the MicroSD to make sure there were no photographs or video to generate thumbnails.
Yes, I see what you mean. I have two, each about 600 Mb, one from 08/07/2012 and one from 19/10/2012. These appear to be the Thumbnail files from the media players.. So until you clear the librarycache from those, they'll keep reappearing.
I also had two files, then deleting all reappeared only one from 711MB!
You have lots of photos and videos?
MarkAndroid said:
I also had two files, then deleting all reappeared only one from 711MB!
You have lots of photos and videos?
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Click to collapse
About 40gb internal, and another 40ish on SD's.
We are different!
My internal memory 45GB free!
MicroSD removed
Yes, quite obviously, you are different. Won't get you a Nobel Prize.
Did you clear the media player's data yet? I have device pretty chock full with all kinds of graphics and videos, and on the MicroSD, the thumbnails file is only slightly less than 12 MB.
ShadowLea probably has a lot more.....errrmmm...shadowy material than me, so I dare not compare us directly.
It seems likely though that you just had a lot of material to be indexed previously, and those caches are never emptied, neither are they touched upon a reinstall. You'll need to empty them by hand yourself.
Yes, obviously we're different. :cyclops:
MartyHulskemper said:
ShadowLea probably has a lot more.....errrmmm...shadowy material than me, so I dare not compare us directly.
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Click to collapse
Well... I'm not paying for my Eweka payserver in the spirit of charity.
MartyHulskemper said:
Yes, quite obviously, you are different. Won't get you a Nobel Prize.
Did you clear the media player's data yet? I have device pretty chock full with all kinds of graphics and videos, and on the MicroSD, the thumbnails file is only slightly less than 12 MB.
ShadowLea probably has a lot more.....errrmmm...shadowy material than me, so I dare not compare us directly.
It seems likely though that you just had a lot of material to be indexed previously, and those caches are never emptied, neither are they touched upon a reinstall. You'll need to empty them by hand yourself.
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Click to collapse
How can I manually clear the cache?
Usually through the settings in the apps themselves.
OK. So what application should I see? Gallery app or all photos and videos app? (Example QuickPic, Mxplayer)
All of them.
MarkAndroid said:
Inside the folder DCIM /.thumbnails there is a file .Thumbdata3 of 710MB!
I tried to delete it but it always returns the same size.
I also tried to delete all the photos from the DCIM folder but nothing has changed!
How is it that the file has a size so big?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem...my files was 1.6GB. I believe it has to do with thumbnails database off all pictues that have been on your phone or gallery, and even if you delete it, they keep track of the all and then recreates the thumbnails file.
My solution was to create a empty folder with the exact same name of the file, in the same location (after deleting the big file first)...did not need to change permissions or anything, just an plain empty folder with the same name replacing the file. I´ve rebooted several times/took lots of pictures and seems to prevent the file to re-create. Has worked so far.
Hope that helps
It seems to work!
Since I created two folders with the name of the file .thumbdata are no longer created the two large files and does not create even the thumbnails!
THANKS
MarkAndroid said:
It seems to work!
Since I created two folders with the name of the file .thumbdata are no longer created the two large files and does not create even the thumbnails!
THANKS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any abnormalities with your device since? Like opening the camera app, taking photos, accessing Gallery, and FCs?
I noticed this type of behavior back with my Motorola DROID. I realized that when I performed Factory resets it would not delete these files off of the SDCard, an I had 4 or 5 of them (when I was trying every ROM under the sun before CM7 was released).
I finally figured out that just deleting them would allow the apps to recreate what they needed - but yeah, some photos that I had moved to a 'hidden' location still had thumbnails showing. I finally figured out what ShadowLea is saying - you have to clear the cache components of the applications themselves and then let them rebuild. From there it is a piece of cake.
solved for Galaxy S3
Hello,
I had the same problem on my Samsung S3. The file was allways created with 1,74 GB and growed. when i deleted it by hand it was created a few minutes later again.
Here the solution that worked for me
1) copy file name
2) delte the file
3) create a folder with the filename (not a file!) *
4) take away all possible permissions for this folder (with total commander for andriod for example)
After that my camera and my picture viewer still works fine. the only "problem" i have is that i dont see a preview of my old pictures in the down left corner of the camera app.
*I also tried to create a file with the name and took the permissions from it but it was overwriten by the camera anyway.
cheers!
Hello all!
I ran into an unusual... let's say quirk yesterday on my LG Optimus F3. I plugged my phone into my computer and set it to Media sync mode to move some downloaded pictures from /sdcard/Download onto my pc's hard drive. I cut and pasted the 100 some files where I wanted them to be, at least I thought so. I made a mistake so I hit cancel on the Windows dialog box after it moved about 50 of them. I pasted them again in the spot I wanted this time, and it moved them to my pc's hard drive as expected. Now here's where it gets weird...
I noticed that 49 of the pictures still have entries as an album in my gallery app. But instead of the proper thumbnails, it shows a cracked picture frame icon for all of them. So I open up ES File Explorer and there is 49 .jpg files inside my Download folder, all with a size of zero bytes. I delete them from my Download folder again. Weird, I thought but oh well. they're gone now. However, the next time I open my gallery app, they are back! All 49 blank, 0 byte .jpg files. So I hooked my phone back up to my pc and used Windows Explorer to delete them this time. But they keep coming back! So far I have repeatedly tried these methods as well as deleting them through adb shell, but to no avail. I have uninstalled and reinstalled ES File Explorer. I have tried a different file manager app (Astro). I have deleted the gallery3d folder in /sdcard/Android/data. I deleted the entire Downloads folder (it recreates that too). I have even cleared the cache and data for both the gallery and media storage apps. Those 49 files keep regenerating themselves as empty 0 byte files. No other files or folders on either the internal storage or external sd card are affected. I've even done a factory reset/data wipe/cache wipe/dalvik wipe/Rom reflash but they still come back.
Does anyone have any advice? It would be greatly appreciated! The only other thing I can think of to do is repartition the internal storage, but I don't know how to use fdisk or parted and I don't wanna make things even worse by screwing around.
Thanks in advance!
Hello guys, Once again I am back on XDA after a long time.
The sad news is I am in big trouble with my Moto G.
Last night I connected my moto G with laptop and opened up the XT1033 folder. I saw a folder in home directory naming "sdcard/sdcard0" which was having UCDownloads folder in it. I never saw this folder earlier. I deleted this folder immediately because the main UCDownload folder was already in the main home directory. After that I opened up DCIM folder it showed same home directory. I opened it three time and all time same home directory was showing.
After disconnecting it I saw there was nothing in ES File Explorer. I have verified everything and lost all data Only application installed were there but there respective folders from storage were also deleted!!!
Can anyone please help me out!!! I am in a big mess
So I've used an app called File Hide Expert for a few years now on multiple devices. My S10e is the first one to give me troubles. I went to "unhide" (remove .nomedia files) on certain folders only to find my folders were empty. My first thought was that it wiped my files which bummed me out. But I was able to recover the thumbnail cache which helped for photos (yay low-res images). I still can't get to my videos or pdfs, which sucks because those were the important files. Anyway, I've been poking at the files for about 2 days now, and what I have found is that if I name a file the exact same name as one of my "deleted" files, it too vanishes, but a file under a new name stays. So I've come to the assumption that they are there, somewhere, just really really hidden. Possibly hid the .nomedia files with a .nomedia file?? Although when I plugged my SD card to my PC (Windows 10) and the folders showed up as empty, so I am kind of at a loss for what to do now. I've tried a slew of file explorers, data recovery apps, even considered rooting it briefly. I truly am at my wits end and need some help.
TL;DR: .nomedia files are gone along with other files, but directory still hides files under certain name.