How to Hide WhatsApp (or any App’s) Images / Videos from Gallery of Android

If you are annoyed by WhatsApp shared images (and also videos) shown in your ‘gallery’ and you want to hide it from there, then this post is for you folks. One more thing, this hack only works for android users. The hack is simple and straight.
  1. open a ‘file manager app’ of your choice in your android phone. Most of the phones should have one pre-installed out of the box. If not download a file manager of your choice from play store. If I were you, my choice would be FX File Explorer.
  2. Open the file manager app, dive directly into the following location. Main Storage -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp Images.
  3. Create a ‘new file’ name it as “.nomedia” in the above mentioned folder. Yes I repeat, there is a “.” (dot) before “nomedia” text. That’s the name of the file you need to create inside the folder.
  4. Repeat the process of creating “.nomedia” file for the following directory/location.
    • Main Storage -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp Images -> Sent
    • Main Storage -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp Video
    • Main Storage -> WhatsApp -> Media -> WhatsApp Video -> Sent
Look for the .nomedia file
Look for the .nomedia file
Done, Android system will ignore the above directories when it index the images and videos for gallery. That means whatever in this folder won’t be shown in the gallery hereafter. However, you need to clear the current cache of your gallery app to make this work immediately. To do that, from home screen of you android phone go to “Settings -> Apps -> All -> Gallery (Different phones have different name for gallery app, usually it is ‘gallery’. if it is different then use your intuition to find your gallery app). Now Click “Clear data” & “Clear Cache” button.
clear-data-cache
Hit the Clear data & Clear cache button
You don’t have to do above process of clearing data & cache for your gallery app, as the cache will build & refreshed itself once a while by android automatically. This makes your WhatsApp photos gone from ‘Gallery’ eventually. One important alert you have to wary of is these images & videos aren’t deleted or secured in anyway. Just it’ll stop showing in gallery, that’s all. You can access these images directly from WhatsApp app and from any file manager app. If you need any clarification, feel free to ask in below comment section, I would be happy to help you.

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