How to Hide WhatsApp Photos and Videos from Showing up in your Gallery ~ Digipan-The Ultimate Technopedia

OMG! I can’t believe my eyes!

Is that what you think right now? Probably, I know most of them reading the title of this article would be amazed at it. But believe, this is gonna become true within a few minutes after you complete reading this article.

I am damn sure; you all would be worried about sharing your smart phone with your mates only because of the fear of having their glimpse at your personal WhatsApp images or videos. Although most of you would lock WhatsApp using Applock or some other privacy protector apps, it doesn’t mean that all your WhatsApp media’s are safe. Then what’s next? You will start protecting your gallery too. But is that okay? Everyone would have that tricky friend who goes on asking for your password. Right na? ;)

So here I am going to reveal the trick behind this, the trick to hide all your images and videos from showing up in gallery without the use of any 3^rd party applications.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED

Android smart phone
Any one File Manger Application (Here I use ES file explorer)

If you doesn’t have one, Read 5 Best File Manager for your Android Smart Phone.

Okay, now you just have all the required items. So let’s move on to the STEP-WISE tutorial.

HOW-TO?

STEP 1: Launch ES file explorer app and navigate to SD card -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp images or WhatsApp video (depends on what you want to hide)

STEP 2: Tap and hold WhatsApp images. From the bottom panel, you can choose ‘rename” option. Rename WhatApp images to “.WhatsApp images”. In short rename by just add a period “.” before WhatApp images.

STEP 3: After renaming, your WhatsApp images folder in ES file explorer as well as in your Gallery would disappear. To make sure just check your Gallery J

DONE! NOW YOU ARE OUT OF DANGER.

HOW-TO GET BACK HIDDEN FILES?

STEP 4: Launch ES file explorer and you should see an icon in the top left corner. Tap on it and open “settings”. Then navigate to “Display settings” and scroll down to see “Show hidden files” option and turn it on by inserting ☑mark.

STEP 5: Again navigate towards SD card -> WhatsApp -> Media. You could see partially visible “.WhatsApp images” folder.

STEP 6: Rename “.WhatsApp images” by removing period “.” to “WhatApp images”. Okay, now you could view your images in Gallery.

NOTE

1) Some users might find it difficult to see their WhatsApp images folder even after renaming by removing period “.” [STEP 5]. Such users, try

· Clearing cache of your gallery app by directing to Settings -> apps -> app manager (varies with manufacture.)

· Rebooting your smart phone.

WHAT'S THE LOGIC BEHIND THIS?

Basically, Android works on Linux kernel. Linux system hides files with a period before it from normal view. When the Gallery app or other media scanner apps search for media’s in your SD card, they leave folders or files having a period “.” Before name by just assuming that the folder contains no files.

Just because I use WhatsApp images to hide from Gallery, it doesn’t mean that you can only hide WhatsApp images. You can also hide any file or folder from standard view by adding period before the folder name. Just give it a try.

ANOTHER WHATSAPP TIP

Generally WhatsApp comes with Media auto-download option. You would have noticed, when someone in your WhatsApp contacts shares an images or videos with you, it gets automatically downloaded. Sometimes it may also contain media’s that we don’t need. These features can even boost your data charges without you knowing it.

To get rid of this you can easily turn off this feature, Open WhatsApp and navigate to Settings -> Chat Settings -> Media auto-download. Change it according to your wish.

HURRAY, no more extra charges J

WIND-UP

I hope this article helped my readers hide images from Gallery. If there is any difficulty on any of the STEPS discussed above, feel glad to ask it through comments. If you find this article worth reading, please recommend it to your friends. Have a nice day J

This Article is written byGANESH SANKAR KK

Ganesh Sankar is the founder and owner of digipan. He loves sharing whatever he knows in the field of technology including how to guides, tip and tricks and much more.

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