Samsung’s Gallery app is more capable than you might think, but it may not be immediately obvious. The following overlooked features in the app can help you better organize your albums, enhance security, create short-form content and shared albums, and more.
Pinch the screen to change the layout
Samsung Gallery makes it really easy to change the layout of your albums and media items. You can zoom in for better visibility or zoom out to see more content at once.
On the main page, you’ll see your albums arranged in a grid view with a row of three by default. Zooming in will change it to a row of two, and zooming out will change it to a list. Inside an album, you can view items in rows of seven, four, or three, or view all items at full size.
Move items to a secure folder
You can move media items or entire albums that contain sensitive, private, or confidential information to a secure folder. Here, they enjoy extra protection from potential intrusions, thanks to the Samsung Knox security platform that’s built into Galaxy devices.
Moving files to Secure Folder prevents you from backing them up to the cloud. Plus, if someone tries to force access those files or reset them, all the content in the folder will be erased to ensure they won’t be able to access your sensitive data.
To do this, simply long-press the image or video you want, tap the three-dot menu, and choose Move to Secure Folder. Then, verify yourself by scanning your fingerprint or typing your lock screen password.
Hide albums or group them together
Some albums may contain items you don’t feel comfortable displaying. Fortunately, you can hide such albums so they don’t appear on the main page and hide them later.
If you have a lot of albums in your gallery, you can also group them together by topic for better organization. In fact, you can even create subgroups inside groups!
Edit the date, time, and location of your photos and videos
If there’s a mismatch between the saved date and the actual date and time of some media items, you can edit it after the shot has been taken. Editing this information can also change the position of these items in the album, if they’re sorted by the date created.
Similarly, you can also add the location where the shot was taken. Doing so can help you keep track of your trips and quickly find relevant shots taken on a particular trip. You can access these options by tapping the info (i) icon in the bottom toolbar and choosing Edit in the subsequent menu.
Add album shortcuts to the home screen
If there’s an album you open regularly, it’s a good idea to add a shortcut to it on your home screen so you can quickly access it whenever you need it.
For example, if you’re a content creator, you’d want a shortcut to the Camera album. If you write a lot of smartphone tutorials, you’ll want a shortcut to the Screenshots album.
To do this, open the album of your choice, tap the three-dot menu, select Add to Home Screen, and tap Add on the prompt that appears.
Set a custom cover image for an album
By default, albums use the most recent photo you clicked or downloaded as their cover image. This is helpful, but it doesn’t always look pretty for obvious reasons.
With Samsung Gallery, you can change your album cover with an image of your choice. This feature is similar to how you change album covers in Google Photos.
Create reels, movies, GIFs, and collages
Samsung Gallery allows you to use your photos and videos to create highlight reels, short movies, GIFs, and collages right within the app. You can choose your own background music for the reel, add stickers to the GIF, experiment with different effects for the movie, and more.
It’s certainly not a replacement for a dedicated content creation tool, but it works well enough when you want to quickly create something and share it with friends.
To do this, open an album and select the images you want, tap the three-dot menu at the bottom, tap Create, and choose the kind of content you want to create. From there, simply customize the content to your liking and click Save when you’re done.