How to Hide Photos in Google Photos (2 Easy Ways)

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There might be certain times when you want to hide photos in Google Photos from your friends or family members. Well, Google keeps your photos and videos private, you might have given access to them to use your smartphone.

Whatever the reason may be, we’re here to help with your problem to hide your photos and videos in Google Photos. In this guide, we’ll show you how to hide photos in Google Photos.

Hiding Pictures in Google Photos

Google doesn’t let you hide photos in Google Photos easily, and there’s no direct way. However, Pixel 3, 4, 5 series of smartphones using the Lock Folder option. Since this option is an exclusive to Pixel smartphones, we won’t be touching them.

There are various ways to hide your photos from WhatsApp, Gallery, etc. In short, there are three ways to hide your photos from Google Photos from others — Archiving Photos, Using “.nomedia,” or “.folder”.

Method 1: Hide Photos in Google Photos Using the Archive Feature

Archiving your photos on Google Photos is one of the best and quickest methods to hide your images in Google Photos. The process is similar on Android, iOS, and Web. Let’s see how to hide photos in Google Photos using the archive feature.

Android and iOS

  1. Launch Google Photos on your phone.
  2. Open the Photo or Video that you want to hide.
  3. Tap on the three-dot menu on the top-right.
    You can also swipe up on the image to access the menu.
    Hide Photos in Google Photos using Archive
  4. Tap on the “Move to Archive” option.
    Hide Photos in Google Photos using Archive - 02
  5. Go back, and you’ll see your photo has been disappeared.

You can also select multiple photos by long-pressing an image, and click on the “Move to Archive” on the three-dot menu.

To access your archived photos, follow these steps:

  1. Open Google Photos on your phone.
  2. Click on the Library option.
  3. Select the Archive option.
  4. Your hidden photos will be visible.

Web

  1. Head to photos.google.com on any web browser on your computer.
  2. Click on the photo/video that you want to hide.
  3. Click on the three-dot menu and select the Archive option.
    Alternatively, you can also use the Shift+A keyboard shortcut to archive.
  4. Once you go back and check, your image will be disappeared.
Hide Photos in Google Photos on Web using Archive

How to Unarchive Images or Videos on Google Photos

Android and iOS

To unarchive images and videos on Google Photos, follow these steps:

  1. Open Google Photos on your phone.
  2. Tap on the Library option at the bottom.
    Unhide Photos in Google Photos from Archive - 01
  3. Select the Archive option.
  4. Select the photo(s) or video(s) you want to unarchive.
    Unhide Photos in Google Photos from Archive - 02
  5. Tap on the three-dot menu, and choose the Unarchive option.
    Unhide Photos in Google Photos from Archive - 03

Web

  1. Head to photos.google.com on any web browser on your computer.
  2. Select the Archive option on the left menu.
    Unhide Photos in Google Photos in Web from Archive - 01
  3. Click on the photo/video that you want to unhide.
  4. Click on the three-dot menu and select the Unarchive option.
    Alternatively, you can also use the Shift+A keyboard shortcut to unarchive.
    Unhide Photos in Google Photos in Web from Archive - 02
  5. Your image or video will appear back as usual.

Method 2: Adding a “.nomedia” file or “.folder” [Android Only]

On Android, Google Photos works as a gallery app. As a result of that, it shows up folders such as screenshots, WhatsApp, and others. Similar to other apps, you can hide photos in Google Photos using the .nomedia file or .folder file.

Before proceeding, you need to download a file explorer like Solid Explorer File Manager and follow the steps below.

.nomedia File

  1. Open Solid Explorer File Manager as mentioned above.
  2. Select all your photos and move them into one Folder. You can name the folder anything.
    Hide Photos in Google Photos using nomedia - 01
  3. Now open the folder, and create a New file there with the name “.nomedia”(a dot followed by nomedia).
    Hide Photos in Google Photos using nomedia - 02
  4. That’s it, open Google Photos now, and it won’t show those photos or videos.
    Hide Photos in Google Photos using nomedia - 03

Renaming any folder to .folder

  1. Open Solid Explorer File Manager as mentioned above.
  2. Select all your photos and move them into one Folder.
  3. Rename the folder, and add a dot in front of it.
    Let’s say your folder name is “images,” you’ll have to rename it to “.images”.
    Hide Photos in Google Photos using dot folder - 01
  4. That’s it, open Google Photos now, and it won’t show those photos or videos.

If you use other gallery apps apart or any apps that shows images, it won’t show the photos in the folder in any of these apps as well. Howeverm you can still access them through the File Explorer.

To view your hidden photos or videos, click on the three-dot menu, and tap on “Folder Options,” and select the “Show hidden files” option.

View Hidden Files and Folders in Solid Explorer - 01
View Hidden Files and Folders in Solid Explorer - 02

You Can Hide Photos in Google Photos Too!

While the above methods work well, they’ve got their disadvantages. Google has made the Lock Folder feature exclusive to the Pixel devices, and everyone doesn’t have have one. To hide photos in Google Photos, you can use the archive feature if you don’t want to get into a lot of technical stuff.

However, if you wish to hide photos from all apps, then you can use the second method to do that. Both methods will hide your images and videos from Google Photos.

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