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I really like my Pixel 6 but this behavior I'm going to describe drives me to distraction.

When I copy pictures to the phone from my digital camera, the apps such as Files and Photos refuse to acknowledge the changes for a very long time, like overnight. Here's an example:

Screenshot showing 5 photos copied to the phone using Ghost Commander at 3:13

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Screenshot showing that 10 minutes later, Files still shows obsolete contents of the folder (pictures I deleted before I copied in the new ones)

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But it is not this way with every app! When I take a screenshot (as I did for this question) they show up immediately in Files. No waiting!

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The pictures will reliably show up in Files the next day. I thought that I could force a "refresh" by restarting the phone, but that does not always work (it has worked 2 out of 3 tries).

It kind of looks like Google apps send a signal that "hey, there are new photos" that Ghost Commander doesn't. And the phone does some kind of system wide search overnight.

I expected that you could "swipe to refresh" or something, but it seems not.

Is there a reliable way to force Files and Photos to refresh their knowledge of what is in a folder?

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    Most apps don't use the file system but instead use the central MediaStore database (what is strange Files app should use directly file-system and thus should detect changes immediately). On older Android versions apps creating files without telling it the database had the problem as you describe, however since about Android 10 this should have been solved. There are commands and AFIR also apps that can trigger this full media scan android.stackexchange.com/q/199685/2241. May be you have some media files that the MediaStore has problems indexing and thus misses the latest updates?
    – Robert
    Commented May 20 at 21:08
  • @Robert you gave me the clue I needed: Refresh the MediaStore. I found an app to do that and it works. If you want to change your comment to an answer, I would be glad to accept it.
    – Organic Marble
    Commented May 20 at 21:44

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Most apps don't use the file system but instead use the central MediaStore database. Since Android 11 this way for accessing files on the shared storage is mandatory. Only apps that can make use of MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (and user has granted this permission to the app) can still see files directly in file-system.

On older Android versions apps creating files without telling it the database had the problem as you describe, however since about Android 10 this should have been solved.

There are adb commands that can trigger this full media scan. Also apps can do the same, but I am not sure which apps still works today.

May be you have some media files that the MediaStore has problems indexing and thus misses the latest updates?

What is strange is that the Files app (which is a system app) should also be capable of listing files directly in file-system and thus should detect changes immediately.

For checking if a file exists I would recommend using a File manager app like Simple File Manager and grant it "Access all files".

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