The Samsung Gallery Android app is now capable of hiding photo albums, with the South Korean tech giant distributing the new feature as part of the latest client-side update to its mobile tool. The functionality itself works in a relatively straightforward manner and is only meant to provide you with a rather basic level of privacy, as hiding and unhiding albums can be done in a matter of seconds and doesn’t require any kind of authorization on your part. Once you’ve updated Samsung Gallery, you’ll be able to take advantage of the new feature by navigating to the Albums section of the app and tapping the three-dot icon in the top right corner of its interface, then selecting the “Hide Albums” option. Doing so will allow you to check any albums you want to hide and complete the process of concealing them by tapping the corresponding option in the top right corner of the UI.
Hiding individual images in Samsung Gallery still isn’t a possibility and marking albums from the default interface won’t present you with the option to hide them, with the latter behavior presumably being intentional as to minimize the chances of someone accidentally discovering the feature. Still, the service isn’t meant to be the ultimate photo privacy solution seeing how unhiding albums is as simple as following the exact steps listed above, implying that Samsung was primarily looking to provide its customers with the ability to free their default Album lists of items they don’t want to see every time they open its gallery app. Users looking for a more efficient and secure method of concealing their files are recommended to take advantage of Samsung Knox or a similar app. Hidden albums also can’t be viewed before they’re unhidden, which is yet another hint that the feature was designed to combat overwhelming album lists and not prying eyes, and the same goes for the fact that the newly introduced service can only hide third-party albums, i.e. folders created by non-Samsung apps
The Samsung Gallery app update shipping with the ability to hide albums presently isn’t being distributed through the Google Play Store and can instead only be downloaded from Samsung’s own Galaxy Apps marketplace. Most contemporary Galaxy-branded devices should be able to install the new software package which reportedly already made its way to all parts of the world. Refer to the gallery below to see how the new functionality looks in practice.
