Google Photos has broken the old rules in the cloud-based media backup industry. By offering free, unlimited storage for photos and videos on your smartphone, it will appeal to any Android ( or even iPhone) user. An increasing number of Android phones only have the Photos app, with no other default gallery app pre-installed.
But is Google Photos the only photo viewer you need on your phone? Probably not.
There's a lot to love about Google Photos. In addition to top-notch features like photo backup, search, and facial recognition, Google Photos Assistant also creates albums, animations, and even movies from events.
Google Photos even has some neat features like a click-and-drag gesture to quickly highlight multiple images, along with a one-tap button to free up space by deleting media files that have been backed up from your phone. If you have a Google Cast device like a Chromecast , you can easily cast your photos and videos to the big screen. And that’s just one of the many things Google Photos can do.
There are a number of interesting gallery apps available that can do a lot more than that. Many of these options feel like familiar “gallery apps,” which should make them more comfortable for long-time Android users.
On the Google Play Store , there are many alternative applications to the default Android gallery. They provide more interesting features than the default gallery such as connecting to Dropbox or Google Photos accounts, etc. Depending on your needs and desires, you can choose the following applications.
Apps to replace Android's default photo gallery
Simple Gallery is designed similarly to the default Android gallery app, but the features are different. Tap the three ⋮ on the top right, you can increase/decrease the number of columns displaying images.
The app is ad-free and only requires necessary permissions. The app also has the feature of displaying the date and time of capture on the images.
Piktures is a feature-rich photo gallery app that offers many useful options like syncing with Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google accounts. You can also connect the app to your desktop or use the hard drive access feature.
By tapping the calendar icon in the top right, you can view photos by date. Tap ⋮ -> Album Settings -> Grid Settings to sort photos in columns, by default, by name, date, size, and last modified.
A+ Gallery also allows syncing with your accounts. But unlike Piktures, the app allows you to connect to accounts like Facebook and Amazon Cloud Drive (as well as Dropbox). When you create a new album, the images will be added to the album saved on both your device and SD card.
The app offers a secure folder where you can store photos you don't want others to see. Your photos are automatically sorted by location and time. You can search for photos by color - just tap the search icon and select a color from the bottom row.
F-Stop Gallery has a Places feature that plots geolocation data from your photos on a map. You can also see the exact coordinates of any photo on Google Maps .
There are a lot of sorting options in this app. In addition to sorting by name and date taken, you can also sort by size and even by day, week, month or year. Each image can be reviewed by pressing and holding while viewing in full screen.
While the app has a free version, upgrading to the Pro version will unlock features like metadata writing, custom sorting, themes, nested albums, and more.
Download F-Stop Gallery (Free) | F-Stop Gallery Pro ($5) .
Open source gallery apps are worth a mention. Open source means you know there’s no tracking going on in the background, and that’s a big deal when working with something as intimate and identifiable as your photos. So if Simple Gallery doesn’t satisfy you, consider Camera Roll instead. To prove its open source credentials, like Simple Gallery, you can also download Camera Roll on F-Droid .
Camera Roll may not blow you away with its features, but it does offer a more stylish, less boring way to browse photos on your device. There are no ads or in-app purchases. The built-in photo editor isn't feature-rich, but you can easily open photos in a separate editor if needed.
Download Camera Roll (Free)
If you don’t have any issues with the Google ecosystem, then the Google Photos alternative you’re looking for might be Google’s own Gallery app. Google Gallery is an offline-oriented alternative to Google Photos that lets you view your images without having to worry about integrating with a cloud service.
Google Gallery is a fun app that lets you quickly scroll through photos, videos, and folders. You can also apply automatic edits to your images or apply a wide range of filters. There aren’t many more features than that, but there are also no ads or in-app purchases. That’s a huge plus.
Download Google Gallery (Free)
Google Photos is a great app that helps preserve your precious memories in the most cost-effective way. But it is not the only option. You can check out some online alternatives to Google Photos .
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