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I'm using Android 4.1.2 (I tagged with 4.1 jelly bean because there is not a 4.1.2 tag, my phone is Samsung galaxy S3 mini. If I open my gallery, in wich all pictures on the phone should be present, only pictures on picasa and pictures taken by the camera do show in the gallery. I have a lot of pictures in my phone, for example pictures on the downloads folder. They don't show up.

I tried with the answers of other questions and it was in vain.

I restarted the phone many times. I re-scanned the device with this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.promethyl.force.media.scanner&hl=en

I went into settings, manage applications, all apps, I stoped the media storage app and the gllery app, also deleted all data (and thus the cache, in fact after deleting the data I tried to delete the cache but the phone didn't let me, I realized that it was because when deleting all the data, It also deleted the cache)

Also music on the phone do not display in the music application. I also deleted music app data, but still it's not there.

EDIT 07/09/2015: The solution that worked for me was to delete .nomedia "hidden" files, in particular a .nomedia file in the MAIN folder preventing the media scanner to scan anything in the main folder of the SDcard. After deleting it, all pictures everywhere seem to be scanned and they appear in the library.

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  • Clear app data of Media Storage app.
  • Find and delete .nomedia files on sdcard.
  • And reboot.

Terminal command to delete .nomedia files recursively. Install Terminal Emulator for Android app. Open it and enter the command.

find $EXTERNAL_STORAGE $SECONDARY_STORAGE -iname ".nomedia" -exec rm {} \;

NOTE: Since android 5.0 doesn't allow third party apps to delete contents of external sdcard, U may need root permissions before that command to delete any .nomedia files on external sdcard. In terminal emulator, Hit su and enter and grant root permissions before using that command.

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  • how I find .nomedia files? Are they hidden files? I have to find them everywhere? Aug 26, 2015 at 2:07
  • @Santropedro Bharat is suggesting that you download a terminal emulator from the play store and run the command they provided. It will search your SD card for all the .nomedia files and remove them.
    – jer3my
    Aug 26, 2015 at 2:15
  • I searched the nomedia files and I can remove them manually. Ill try first that to see how it goes Aug 26, 2015 at 2:18
  • yes they are hidden files. Any file/folder name starting with period is hidden. U dont have to find them everywhere, only in the paths where u have media and want to show up in gallery/music/video players. I just gave that command for ease.
    – Bharat G
    Aug 26, 2015 at 2:23
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    +1 Could you link the app? I think you can also do find $EXTERNAL_STORAGE $SECONDARY_STORAGE -iname ".nomedia" -exec rm {} \; or find /storage/{sdcard0,sdcard1} -iname ".nomedia" -exec rm {} \; or find /storage/ -iname ".nomedia" -exec rm {} \; to nuke from any detected storage.
    – Firelord
    Aug 26, 2015 at 7:42

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