Admit it. You’ve always wanted to hide those obscene selfies you took in your free time on your Android phone, from your friends. Or those over-whelming images you get on WhatsApp you don’t want others to find, and judge you. Or even a few videos, or audio files that you don’t want others to see. Solution? There are tons of apps available on the market that do the needful. But, is there a simpler way? No app lockers or vaults? No separate app hassles? Yes, there is. And you are at the right place.
Lets say you want to hide files on Android device you have, say the WhatsApp images from all your Gallery apps. One way would be to download an app locker, and lock the Gallery app itself. Or, to download a ‘Photo vault’ to separately store your WhatsApp Images. Let’s have a look at a much simpler method.
(Due to a few permission limitations, this works only for Android devices. iOS doesn’t allow us to have full access to all our files on the storage.)
Pre-requisites :
- An Android device
- A good file explorer app, such as Explorer or ES File Manager (Only works for Android devices.)
Procedure – Hide files on Android devices:
1) First up, install a file manager if not already installed. I prefer Explorer by Speed Software. You can download it from here.
If not, you can also grab the apk file from here.
2) Now open the file manager, and head over to the directory of the images to be hid. For WhatsApp images, the directory would be :
storage > WhatsApp > Media > WhatsApp Images
(For users with root access, it may be : storage > emulated > O > WhatsApp > Media > WhatsApp Images )
3) Now hit on the ‘+’ icon below, in the horizontal menu bar.
4) Choose ‘File’ from the resulting options, and name it ‘.nomedia’ without the quotes. Save it.
5) You will see a new file named ‘.nomedia’ above all the images in the directory.
That’s it. The .nomedia file you just created sends a command to your media applications that the contents of this directory aren’t to be displayed. Most of the fancy Android locker apps on the market do the same.
The same procedure applies for other directories too.
Want to unhide the images? simply head over to the same directory and delete the .nomedia file you created.
(Refresh the gallery app if required after the deletion.)
It is that simple to hide files on Android devices. Now that you have the power in your hand, go ahead, and take control of what is visible in your gallery apps.
Hope this simple tutorial serves the purpose. Any doubts or suggestions? Feel free to put ’em in the comments section below. Let us know if you have any other alternate method for the same.
For more such useful tutorials and how-tos, check out this link.
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