Here's how to hide a folder and prevent the Gallery app from displaying its contents (Android tutorial)

Imagine that you are have a collection of rather sensitive data on your Android device, a folder of pictures, in particular. In the most common scenario, you'd probably like it to remain hidden from prying eyes and not show up in your Gallery app, where its contents can be viewed by whoever who grabs your phone. Luckily, there are a number of ways to hide the folder and whatever image content might be found inside.

Even if you've secured your device with a PIN code, chances are that some of your tech-savvy friends or relatives will eventually get to play around with your shiny new 'Droid. Hopefully, they will value your privacy so much that they wouldn't even think of going to your gallery and browse through your images, but the second scenario is a tad worse - there's a pretty high chance that they'd like to look through some pictures you've taken before, which will naturally lead them to your gallery, and right there, near the bottom comfortably rests a folder that is meant for your eyes only. Do you feel uneasy already?

You won't even scratch the surface of what might be inside the folder you'd like to hide, but nonetheless, we'll show you the ropes on how to sweep it under the rug.

Method #1

Okay, this is the simplest way to prevent your Gallery app from scanning the contents of a folder and displaying whatever it finds inside. You'll have to pay a visit to Google Play and download a third-party Gallery replacement. For our tutorial, we've used QuickPic, one of the better custom offerings for your Android device.

 

Method #2

Although not as convenient, there exists a manual, a tad more complicated way to hide a given folder or image file. In order to do so, you'll have to navigate to navigate to the folder you'd like to hide and rename it in a certain fashion. Note that you might not be able to do that with your pre-loaded file manager - instead, you might need a third-party one, such as ES File Explorer.

All set? Let's go!