4

I set Google Photos to automatically back up pictures and videos I take and nothing else. I use an Xperia phone and it comes with a feature to take "Time Shift" photo which is essentially just a series of rapidly taken pictures. It's stored under the "XPERIA" folder inside "DCIM". The problem is it doesn't show up in the setting to exclude folders. And it also gets uploaded to Google Photos, so I'm often flooded with pictures (remember, it's multiple rapidly taken photos) that I don't really need backed up. I can't move the folder either as it is hard coded into the Xperia's system.

Improve this question
7
  • See comment - you can do the same for some other folder within device too
    – beeshyams
    Jun 11, 2017 at 8:15
  • @beeshyams Moving the folder elsewhere will cause the app to not detect the photos anymore. Is there a rooted approach to make it so that the Google Photos app don't see that the XPERIA folder exists?
    – user400424
    Jun 15, 2017 at 5:25
  • You would probably need to use another gallery app to view them using alive options .
    – beeshyams
    Jun 15, 2017 at 5:35
  • @beeshyams I have a gallery app, the problem isn't viewing the photos. The problem is the Google Photos backup service including the whole lot of images, I want to exclude those without moving the folder elsewhere so that the time shift camera still functions normally.
    – user400424
    Jun 15, 2017 at 5:43
  • I understood your problem and also that if you move them elsewhere, Xperia gallery app can't see them. What I am suggesting is move them (so that backup is not burdened) and use another app or file manager to view those time shift photos
    – beeshyams
    Jun 15, 2017 at 5:49

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

I managed this by creating a .nomedia file in the subfolder. In your case I think this should be 

  - DCIM
    - XPERIA
      - .nomedia

I used ES File Explorer File Manager to create the file but I think you can use the native file explorer if you copy an existing text file and rename it.

The .nomedia tells the android media scanner to ignore the folder which stops Google Photo from showing or uploading any files.

A side-effect of this is that most apps will no longer be able to view files in the subfolder.

If you still wanted easy access to the time shift photos you could either install a gallery app that ignores the .nomedia file or set up a Tasker profile to watch the subfolder and move new files outside of the DCIM folder (e.g. Pictures folder?).

Improve this answer
3
  • This method is not working on my Redmi Note 7 Pro.
    – MrObjectOriented
    Apr 7, 2019 at 16:00
  • Don't ever do it! You won't be able to get uri of the media file in this case and you won't be able to open such media files in other apps, basically MediaStore service ignores a file if that file is placed in folder with .nomedia file. And it's a real headache for developers and then users spam with bad reviews on Google Play that something doesn't work because those idiots put .nomedia file inside a folder. Google really sucks for allowing such things, it should be only used by system folders. And then we all discuss why Android is more buggy than iPhone
    – user25
    Aug 26, 2022 at 21:54
  • 1
    Beautiful! I've been tearing my hair out for 2 days trying to figure out how to get Google Photos to stop backing up huge videos copied over from my drone. This worked like a charm, and my file manager doesn't care about the MediaStore limitations user25 mentions.
    – James
    Feb 12 at 1:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .