Google Photos usually comes preinstalled on all Android phones, but that’s not the only reason it’s one of the small number of apps with more than 10 billion downloads on the Google Play Store. It’s popular because of its all-in-one photo management system. However, if you use a Samsung Galaxy handset, you also get the Samsung Gallery app that can outperform Google Photos in many areas.
As good as the Samsung Gallery app is for a long list of editing tools and integration with Secure Folder, Google Photos has many advantages over it, including features like “Locked Folder.” Now, it looks like the South Korean tech giant wants to narrow that gap with a similar type of feature called “Private album.”
Samsung Gallery app may offer a more user-friendly way of hiding your photos
Currently, the Samsung Gallery app lets you hide photos quickly using the Secure Folder integration. But it’s not the most convenient way of accessing your private photos, since you won’t be able to open them in the Gallery app. However, with an improved version of the Samsung Gallery app in One UI 8.5, this issue may become a thing of the past.
As first spotted by SamMobile, Samsung is working on a new feature called “Private album” for its Gallery app. The outlet has also posted screenshots of the feature, giving us a closer look at how the feature will work. And based on what we see, it works very similarly to Google Photos’ “Locked Folder.”
The new “Private album” is an in-app solution, which means all those sensitive photos remain accessible right in the Gallery app. You’ll be able to access all your hidden photos and videos by tapping the Menu button on the app’s home screen and then selecting the “Private album” option. Upon testing the feature on their devices, SamMobile also found that Samsung’s equivalent of Google Photos’ “Locked Folder” is pretty basic, lacking key features such as the ability to rearrange photos.
But an in-app “Private album” will still be useful if you want to hide your sensitive photos and videos. It not only makes those photos invisible as you scroll through the Samsung Gallery, but it will also likely prevent them from showing in other apps, as is the case with Google Photos.
However, don’t raise your expectations if you are a Samsung user, as the feature is still in testing in One UI 8.5 beta, which hasn’t been rolled out worldwide yet. Assuming that it’ll be part of the final One UI 8.5 stable release, “Private album” will be one of the most notable upgrades to the Gallery app.
