How can I stop album art displaying in Android picture gallery?

[ellymoo]

I've read several very old suggestions on how to sort this so I'm wondering if there is a more up to date solution. I don't want my album art showing as an album in my picture/photo gallery. Is anyone able to help please? I'm using a Samsung Galaxy and spent aaaaaages on live chat to Samsung but they weren't able to moot a solution. Thank you very much!

[Lowlander]

What have you tried so far? Did you try creating the .nomedia in the Artwork folder(s)?

[ellymoo]

Thank you for your reply. I have put it in a folder but it may be the wrong one! Where should I put it please? In each album art folder? That'll take so long I may as well delete them all...

[Peke]

Hi,
FYI it is known issue that Samsung gallery app ignore .nomedia file and still shows media and that some other apps have setting to ignore it enabled by default.

Have you tried Google Photo app?

[ellymoo]

Thank you, I will give that a shot. Where do I put the nomedia folder?

[Peke]

Hi,
it is not folder it is an empty files named ".nomedia" and you can put it in any folder that you want to be ignored by Google Android Media Scanner (at least in apps that respect that).

[Andre_H]

Can confirm. Just put a ".nomedia"-file in your "music"-folder, restart your phone, and the cover arts disappear from the image previews of various apps.

Thanks @Peke.

[ellymoo]

How do I create a no media file please? Or do I just entitle any file nomedia?

[Peke]

do I just entitle any file nomedia?

You can do that (Use small file as it is usually 0Bytes) but please note that DOT as prefix to nomedia it needs to be exactly named like this ".nomedia"

[ellymoo]

Thanks, unfortunately it hasn't worked for me - it doesn't help that when I rename a file .nomedia it promptly disappears and I can't find it in a search!

However, I've now found I can hide folders in Samsung gallery and Google Photos has a default for photos only which is helpful.

[Peke]

Hi,
Strange, but at least you have solved you issue. Can you please let me know where is the option in Samsung Gallery because it is very common issue for Samsung users?

[ellymoo]

The option is for 'hide albums' when you tap the 3 dots on the right hand side, but it's only when you actually view the gallery and you have to select the albums one by one. If you want to select pictures it still shows all the blooming albums.

I am still trying to add a .nomedia file, but I am getting nowhere!

[keets]

for anyone still having issues with this, i couldnt get a .nomedia file to stay in the main "Music" folder in my phone on android 14. I would create it but if i copied any new music to phone it would get removed automatically. I had to create a .nomedia file in every artist folder under my Music folder. Also if the album art was already in the photos app, adding a .nomedia file after the fact didnt help, i had to recopy my music to my phone with the .nomedia file in the folders

[Vladimir]

For anyone else still having issues...

I have just been going crazy trying to eliminate 150 album cover art folders from my wife's gallery on her Samsung. I have used .nomedia files for years and never had any issues until now. My first challenge was simply trying to copy a .nomedia file onto the phone. Windows wouldn't allow copying a file with 0 bytes. Tried emailing, but Gmail wouldn't allow an attachment of 0 bytes. I tried using another .nomedia folder that wasn't 0 bytes because it had the path of the folder in the .nomedia file. This didn't hide the folder though, so I assumed it might be because the path didn't match correctly. Does the Android system add these paths to blank .nomedia files?? I don't actually know if this even matters or not though.

I read about the Solidexplorer app, so installed that and attempted to create .nomedia files with that. They appeared to be created, but then I couldn't find them anywhere. I tested with the Samsung My Files setting "Show Hidden system files" both on and off with no luck. Then learned about Android 11 and up automatically deleting .nomedia files from folders that Android has now claimed as "system" folders (Music, Videos, etc).

The suggested solution to this is not to put your music in the "Music" folder, but create a new folder called, say "My Music", and then Android won't delete/ignore your .nomedia files. Then only one .nomedia file needs to be placed in the root folder - not every sub folder as another user had to do. I wasn't keen on that solution, as then you have to remember to update new folders as they are added with a .nomedia file.

So frustrating, thank's Google... if it ain't broke don't fix it!