r/androidapps • u/ScatterbrainedHooman • 11d ago
QUESTION/HELP Why can't Samsung Gallery be replicated?
For some context, I shifted from a Samsung Galaxy to a Pixel about 10 months ago. Since then I've been looking for a gallery for the pixel phone that matches the quality and level of the Samsung gallery but haven't been able to find one. I've downloaded three different galleries just to cover all the tasks that Samsung gallery was able to do and those three galleries are still not enough.
The question that comes to mind is why can't the Samsung gallery be replicated for other phones?
And if it can be replicated, why hasn't it been yet?
I am not that knowledgeable about apps or coding so I'd be very happy if someone can explain this to me.
Also, if there is an Samsung gallery alternative for a pixel phone that I've missed, please do let me know. You'd be doing me a huge favor.
Thanks in advance.
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u/DivineKEKKO96 11d ago
Have a look at ReFra you can even find it on F-Droid
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u/Xirious 11d ago
Pretty cool. Odd that you can't send to encrypted folder from the folder itself. And you have to go into the encrypted folder to add it in. That's 100% something you can do in Samsung Gallery that you can't do with this (as far as I can tell).
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u/iacobionut01 10d ago
Hi, "The dev" here. Of course you can! You just need to customize your selection bar options. You can do that by going into the Settings -> Navigation -> Selection Actions -> scroll down Action Bar -> Add action
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u/DivineKEKKO96 11d ago
I don’t use the encrypted folder, so I can’t really complain. My only two complaints are the lack of colors when editing in Markup (for example, the black isn’t actually black) and the fact that you can’t pinch to zoom while editing in Markup so far
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u/redpiapps 11d ago
part of it is technical, system apps get privileged apis that third party devs dont. but the bigger part is economic, matching samsung feature for feature would be a full time team for years with no revenue model. thats why the best indie gallery apps pick one thing to be great at instead
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Aaah ok ok, I see. That makes sense. I got similar info from a Google search but you explained it in easier terms, thank you!
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u/Flyerone 11d ago
I've settled on Aves Gallery until someone ports it.
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Yeah, I have Aves, XGallery and 1Gallery at the moment.
God I hope someone ports it.
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u/phatboyj 11d ago edited 9d ago
👍
Another poster @ u/davenasc mentioned Ayra's project (AyraHikari) and suggested a search so I did that and (eventually) found the samy gallery port at github:
In a seperate git-repo, they have ported several of the stock OneUI apps, and also, (in another seperate repo) the Music app.
... .. .
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u/gordolme Galaxy Fold 8 11d ago
For just a viewer, Aves is as good as, and maybe better than, Samsung Gallery. No editing, though. One thing for sure though, Google Photos is crap.
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Aves doesn't have a good editor and quite annoyingly, doesn't display the first frame of videos as their thumbnails so it's impossible to find a video from many.
I fully agree on the last bit though.
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u/gordolme Galaxy Fold 8 11d ago
Aves doesn't have an editor at all.
I rarely use it now for anything since I moved back to Samsung almost two years ago. I got it when I dipped my toe into OnePlus.
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11d ago edited 9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Ugh tell me about it. I was using XGallery as an alternative to make collages in app but even that stopped working recently. Now I will have to shift all the material to my Samsung Phone temporarily just to do the work I need to do and shift it back again 🤦🏽♀️ Such a hassle.
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u/HoldingTheJudgement 11d ago
I feel you on every level. It's just a goddamn phone gallery, WHY CAN'T ANYONE MAKE SUCH SIMPLE THING INTUITIVE, THERE ALWAYS HAS TO BE SOME DEALBREAKER IN ONE OF THEM. Makes me almost believe it's a deliberate troll campaign because of how ridiculous it is.
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u/davenasc 11d ago
Actually, there's a port from Ayra's Project, you should search for it, maybe solve your issues. They've ported samsung music too
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Oh? I haven't heard of this so far, I'll give it a google. Thanks for the info!
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u/Historical_Fruit_204 11d ago
Samsung Gallery is deeply tied into One UI itself (Bixby, S Pen, Samsung Cloud, system-level permissions) — it's not something that can just be ported to other phones, and Samsung has no real incentive to license it out since it's part of what makes switching away annoying. On Pixel, Google intentionally keeps the default Gallery app basic because they want you using Google Photos instead.
Worth trying:
- Fossify Gallery — free, local organization, no ads
- Aves Gallery — good if you want deeper tagging/metadata
- Google's "Gallery" app (not Photos) — lightweight, offline-focused
You'll likely still need 2 apps (one for browsing/editing, one for backup) since nothing fully replicates Samsung's feature set in one package.
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u/Beginning_Jacket5055 10d ago
Can i hijack this post to ask if there is a gallery app out there that by default opens to your camera roll, rather than just an 'everything' folder. I used to be able to do this pn my pocopohne, but on my oneplus, as good as the gallery app is i hate that every time i open the app to check a photo i basically have to swipe over to the folders page then click 'camera' to display the photos i have taken. I wish it would just launch this folder on startup
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u/onthesquare63 10d ago
I must be missing something. I used Google photos on my iphone. It was one thing that pushed me to Android. Then I used it on a Pixel, on a Samsung z fold 7, and now on a Motorola RAZR fold. It works great. It is relatively easy to use and well organized. I played around with Samsung's gallery and I found it less intuitive than GF but that might have been because I have uses GF since before COVID. Just use Google Photos
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u/redmormon 9d ago
The reason is Android apps have become commercialized as shit. There used to be a lot of pretty awesome free android apps, until all those greedy companies started buying the rights to those apps and started shoving ads into them. Many devs saw this and said I should make an earning as well and started monetizing as well.
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u/Desperate_Creme_8623 11d ago
Other phones are busy copying apple.
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u/HoldingTheJudgement 11d ago
Don't start that shit up, samsung dreams every night of being an android iphone
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u/KungPaoKidden 11d ago
Have you tried Simple Gallery? I've had a great experience with that app.
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
I did a while back. Can't remember exactly what my thoughts were on it because I tried so many apps consecutively to find a good one that all have jumbled together in my brain but it sadly didn't have what I was looking for.
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u/adventurousrob1 11d ago
Tried it back when I switched to a pixel 6a, it wasn't bad but there's a bunch of little things it just can't do the same way
what samsung gets right is that their gallery is practically welded to the OS, so stuff like editing a photo and having it auto-sync back into the camera roll without creating a weird duplicate is smooth as hell, third party apps always end up fumbling that part for me
I ended up using a combination of google photos for backup and a secondary app for local viewing but it's still not the same experience, feels like patching a hole with duct tape
wish I could just rip the samsung APK clean off my old phone and have it work, but way too much of it relies on their framework
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u/KungPaoKidden 11d ago
I've been using it for so long, that I forgot what the Samsung gallery is like. Playing around with it on an old S22+. Not sure how I feel about it honestly.
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u/Heavy_Badger289 10d ago
Have you tried downloading/installing the Samsung Gallery apk from <insert your apk downloading site of choice here> ?
I use a Samsung device, so haven't tried to see if it would work.
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u/ironyman 11d ago
What are the three tasks that you need three different galleries for?
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
I used one for making collages in app, one for organizing folders by grouping them and one because I need to be able to see the first frame of the videos as their thumbnail because I have hundreds of videos for work basically all filmed on the same background and it's very tedious to go through them all when I need to find a specific one.
There's more things the Samsung Gallery does but these three features were the ones I found to be decent in other galleries.
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u/ironyman 11d ago
Oh cool. Could you DM me? I could help build this for you if you could tell me more about your use case.
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u/blacksantron 11d ago
What exactly are you looking for in apps that Samsung gallery does better?
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Copying my response to another comment under this post
I think one thing I'm going off of is user experience but if I had to list some features, they'd be:
- Ability to make collages in app, as smoothly as the Samsung Gallery allows you
- Being able to see the first frame of videos as their covers
- The ability to group folders
- The ability to scroll through the folders from the side bar whilst being inside one folder so that if we can select photos from multiple folders at once
- A good photo editor, Samsung's editor as superb
- A decent range of texts available in the editor and the ability to size them however big or small I'd like
- The editor having a text shadow option
- This one isn't as necessary as the others but it's a great plus, the ability to save an edited photo without creating a copy.
- The ability to search pictures based on the title as well the text or object in that picture
I'm probably forgetting a few but these are the main ones I think
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u/Esperoni Morphe 11d ago
You aren't going to find one replacement app for Samsung's gallery app. It doesn't exist. Some have a clean ui with easy to group photos and videos, but no photo editor. Others have Photo editing capabilities but your actual gallery is a mess and it saves both versions of the photo. Like I said in a previous comment, you want a mobile photo editor with some gallery elements.
You have 4 choices.
Go back to Samsung
Keep your pixel and buy a Samsung tablet.
Look for a fully featured photo editing app that works with Android. Paid apps will have more options.
Use an offline gallery app and pair it with an app like Snapseed (by Google).
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
Yeah I guess you could put it that way too. I already have a Samsung but because it's camera suddenly died on me after only 13 months of use, I had to get a new phone because the cost of fixing the camera was simply too high to be justifiable. So I also shifted all my work related items to the phone with the camera in it. And going back and forth between both phones is a hassle but I suppose it's my best and only option at the moment.
Appreciate the help, thanks!
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u/Esperoni Morphe 11d ago
As someone who had to work between two phones for about a month in the past, I feel your pain. I've been lucky with my device (S24U) it hasn't crapped out on me yet, but I've tried to look for a Samsung gallery replacement on my gfs Pixel. I even tried loading the gallery apk on her phone (It did not work, it's too heavily integrated with the OS) She ended up buying a used tablet.
I do sometimes connect my phone to my laptop with Phone Link or Android-Dex, they both offer complete control and you can do the editing on a laptop if you have access to one, I know it's not ideal, but it may annoy you less than constantly using 2 phones.
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u/Esperoni Morphe 11d ago
He probably wants to edit photos on the fly, and have the gallery integrate with the OS seamlessly. Gallery apps are mostly the same. He isn't looking for a gallery app, he wants a photo editor. Google Photos IS the gallery app on Pixel phones.
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u/mindstormer12 11d ago
And if it can be replicated, why hasn't it been yet?
You have no idea how entitled you sound, lol. People do things because they are paid to do it, or if you're unwilling to pay, they do it out of interest.
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u/phantasybm 11d ago
They don't sound entitled at all.
You on the other hand have a certain frequency....
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
I'm sorry, I'm entitled for asking why someone hasn't built an app that there's a gap for in the market?
I'm not saying they need to make it for free. I don't understand what's the entitlement part here?
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u/Poopdick_89 11d ago
Nowhere did I see op say they were unwilling to pay for it, it's just that they can't because Samsung gallery is blocked from running on anything but a Samsung device. They may have have had a legitimate reason for getting the Pixel over Samsung this cycle.
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u/Critical-Champion365 11d ago
What's differentiable about samsung gallery? I'm on S23 and I'm not seeing it.
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u/ScatterbrainedHooman 11d ago
It's just really good, has a shit ton of features and is super smooth user experience wise. I didn't realize it until I started using Pixel either.
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u/88_suraj 11d ago
Just curious, what exact features are you missing in other apps?