Database Develop

HOW TO - Hide Certain Media Files from Music Player and Gallery (5/30/2009)

Have you ever been listening to your Britney Spears, Daft Punk or Tupac and suddenly you start hearing files that aren't music (i.e ringtones, notification sounds, etc.)? I find it pretty annoying that there is no current method to hide these files from the music player, until now.
I would like to give credit to Scheff's Blend for this idea, and after tinkering with the the doom game folder on my memory card, I found a file called ".nomedia". Within that same folder was over 100 sound files for the game doom, BUT my music player was not reading that specific folder.
I figured it had to do something with that ".nomedia" file, and coincidentally it DID.
Instructions:
1) Download and unzip nomedia.zip somewhere onto your computer
2) Inside is a file called .nomedia, copy it into the directory of media files you want to hide
3) Reboot your phone
P.S. This also works for pictures and video files, BUT for newly taken pictures and videos, or music files added, a REBOOT is REQUIRED to hide them again.
WARNING: this completely hides the files from the phone, so they become unusable to any application until the .nomedia file is removed, and the phone is restarted. I know Scheff's Blend found a way to use those files while hiding them, yet I haven't. If anyone wants to help me out, feel free to.
I know a lot of people wanted to know how to do this, so sorry to any mod who notices I double posted, but I just realized I should have put it in this forum section to begin with. Feel free to delete the other thread in the "Dream" section.

Right on.
Another option that works is placing files you want hidden inside of a folder that starts with a period, such as ".hiddenfolder" or ".stuffimhiding"
Files and folders that begin with a period are considered hidden files by the Android OS and do not show up in Gallery or the music app

Thanks man..
was looking for a way to do this..

davidemartindale said:
Right on.
Another option that works is placing files you want hidden inside of a folder that starts with a period, such as ".hiddenfolder" or ".stuffimhiding"
Files and folders that begin with a period are considered hidden files by the Android OS and do not show up in Gallery or the music app
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Click to collapse
Thanks, thats good to know. But can they be used by lets say the dialer.apk as a ringtone?

I do the same thing with Astro. Like Dave said, keeping a folder with a dot at the front and anything within won't be read unless opened by Astro or renamed. This may not work for the ringtones, but its quicker than having to reboot if you just want to hide photos, documents, videos, etc.

I have problem where videos in folder w/ .nomedia get deleted at each reboot... Now using Cyan 4.1.11.1... Really weird. Each reboot deletes videos in those folders

maxqc said:
I have problem where videos in folder w/ .nomedia get deleted at each reboot... Now using Cyan 4.1.11.1... Really weird. Each reboot deletes videos in those folders
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i too got that problem so am just using the .folder method to hide the files for now...

Dare{D}evil said:
i too got that problem so am just using the .folder method to hide the files for now...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never heard of.. Same thing as with the .nomedia ?
Just create a .folder in the folder ?
TY

[Q] Gallery video messed up

Recently I tried to stop the gallery from scanning the media files (pictures) on storage with .nomedia.txt. It didnt seem to work so I ignored it. After a few days I found that my videos were "duplicated" At first there were two and then more and more. Everytime I scan media, more pops up. It seems these are just thumbnails that link to no where. As I have tried to play the files and it says file was not found. I have removed the .nomedia.txt file does not seem to resolve the problem.
Im on GT-i9000 Firmware 2.2 JPM baseband.

Just wanted you to know, you're not alone.
I'm on 2.2 JPD and have the exact same issue. Thumbnails for videos are massively duplicated in Gallery.
Don't really know why this happens, but I don't really use Gallery in the first place so it doesn't bother me as much since all my vids are in 1 directory and pictures in another.
No problems with picture thumbnails, just vid thumbnails.

The file you are making shouldn't be .nomedia.txt , Its .nomedia (without the .txt) Also I recommend you use Mvideoplayer to view videos as its awsome. If you are gutsy you could delete the /mnt/sd_card/.gallerycache folder.
To make that .nomedia file just make a blank file using notepad but when saving select ALL FILES in the option that says "Save file as"

ickyboo said:
The file you are making shouldn't be .nomedia.txt , Its .nomedia (without the .txt) Also I recommend you use Mvideoplayer to view videos as its awsome. If you are gutsy you could delete the /mnt/sd_card/.gallerycache folder.
To make that .nomedia file just make a blank file using notepad but when saving select ALL FILES in the option that says "Save file as"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh, ok. Ill give it another shot then. tx
nickbarau said:
Just wanted you to know, you're not alone.
I'm on 2.2 JPD and have the exact same issue. Thumbnails for videos are massively duplicated in Gallery.
Don't really know why this happens, but I don't really use Gallery in the first place so it doesn't bother me as much since all my vids are in 1 directory and pictures in another.
No problems with picture thumbnails, just vid thumbnails.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup just video thumbnails. Anyways I decided to delete all the extra thumbnails and did a few reboot n rescan. the issue seems to have resolved itself how strange !

check this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=831042&page=6
it solved my multiple thumbnails.

I fixed mine by formatting my SD card and putting everything back in afterwards. and I deleted the thumbnail folder in DCIM.

[Q] Where do these pictures come from?

Hello,
Does anyone know where the folders come from?
I got lot's of folder with 'picturers' or let say icons in my gallery and I find them quite annoying.
See screenshot.
Does anyone know how to get rid of them ?
Already deleted them before but the keep on coming back.
Thanks
screen -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5778397/download.jpg

decat said:
Hello,
Does anyone know where the folders come from?
I got lot's of folder with 'picturers' or let say icons in my gallery and I find them quite annoying.
See screenshot.
Does anyone know how to get rid of them ?
Already deleted them before but the keep on coming back.
Thanks
screen -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5778397/download.jpg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you got go launcher or any other third party launcher? Go sms? Any other custom sms clients? I installed go sms once and now I have those strange ghost smileys on my phone. And can't you simply delete them in the gallery (or any other image viewer)?
Sent from my Galaxy Note running ICS

This is what happens when third party apps store data on your sdcard, and don't include a nomedia file in the folder they are storing them in, youwill have to either delete the files or if they keep coming back find the folder they are in and create a file with the name .nomedia with no file extension

Just be aware that if you have other media in the folder (eg. mp 3, videos etc.), they will no longer show up in other media playing apps if you add the .nomedia file.
I have a lot of music folders that have album art in them. All of the album art shows up in Gallery, which is annoying. I can't add a .nomedia file, or my mp3's won't show in music players.
I use Just Pictures most of the time as it allows you to hide folders. I only use Gallery when I am selecting a picture from an app that doesn't play nice with Just Pictures.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA

thanks, at the moment they didn't come back.
Let's hope it will stay this way.

[Q] Camera folders and micro sd card

Hi there,
I am new to this forum and this is my first time posting! I have the ATT samsung galaxy S5 and I am rooted but running the stock ROM. I am relatively new to android and this is my first one after three years of having iphones. Anyway, I just got a 32gb microSD card but I am having some problems making it work with the camera. Before I put the SD card in, I had several folders in my camera, such as videos, camera, screenshots, snapchat, transferred from my iphone, etc... When I transferred from my iphone, a lot of the pictures were out of order but I learned to deal with it. When I put my SD card in, all of the folders mushed together with all my videos on the top and everything out of order. Now I just have one folder called externalSDcard and one called "camera" where new pictures are stored and one called picassa. Im not even sure if they are folders or albums! How do I restore everything to how it was before but keep it all on the SD card?

HELP!
Nothing? Really?

Really the only thing you can do I believe is put the pics on your computer and then format your SD card then put them back on in their appropriate folder. Pics go in the pictures folder and mpegs go in movies folder. Hope you figure it out.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using XDA Premium 4 mobile
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Android will scan your phone for media files and will show all in the gallery. Now in the gallery you can create albums then drag and drop pictuers or videos into them. Also the camera folder must reside in the DCIM folder.

Waiting4MyAndroid said:
Android will scan your phone for media files and will show all in the gallery. Now in the gallery you can create albums then drag and drop pictuers or videos into them. Also the camera folder must reside in the DCIM folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly, the file structure on your SD card hasn't changed, but gallery app is organizing them the way it wants. What's even better is if you are storing camera pictures on SD card after having stored some on internal memory, now you have two "Camera" items shown in your gallery.
Picasa, by the way, is any pictures you've stored in picasaweb (which may be "none").
You might find a different picture viewing app more to your liking. I've always liked quickpic and now it supports viewing picasa pics as well, which was one of the only reasons to use the stock Gallery. And it's free.
The only remaining reason I have to use the stock Gallery is for those "shot & more" pictures I still want to edit (but that comes with a big bug of its own).

Thanks
Thanks so much for your help! I think I am getting things sorted out. For some reason though when I move the picture around or make any kind of changes, it changes the date from the day it was taken to when I last changed the location. I think that is why all the videos are on the top. Is there anyway to change that back? Also Im not a big fan of the gallery app so I think I'll try quickpick! Ill let you know how it goes!

Question How to use .nomedia in MIUI Gallery?

Hey Guys,
Hiding folders from gallery with .nomedia
Whats the workaround for hiding folder with a .nomedia file from the MIUI Stock Gallery?
I used to omit my scanned documents folders by using this workaround in my previous phones. But those folders get picked up by MIUI stock gallery now.
Any clue ?

AFAIK there must be an option for that in settings,just untick it

I had the same problem, couldn't hide a lot of folders from Gallery, even .nomedia files I put in the folders are ignored and often even automatically deleted!.
So eventually I had to switch to another and better gallery app from the Play Store.