Let’s face it, the stock Android photo gallery app could use a serious makeover. You may not even consider a third-party gallery app if the stock one had decent features. Since that’s not the case, you have no choice but to search for options.
The gallery app you decide to use will obviously need to fulfill your particular needs and wants. The following photo gallery apps will offer different features such as being able to connect to your Dropbox or Google Photos account to being able to add an extra column to your picture gallery.
1. Piktures – Photo Album Gallery
Piktures is a feature-rich gallery app that offers many useful features such as allowing you to sync with your Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google accounts. You can also connect the app to your desktop, and it features hard drive access, too.
By tapping on the calendar icon at the top-right, you can choose to see your images from any date. Tap on the three vertical dots -> Album Settings -> Grid settings and decide if you want your gallery to show you three, four, or five columns. By following the same steps, you can also sort your pictures by default, name, date, size, and last modified.
2. A+ Gallery – Photos & Gallery
A+ Gallery also allows you to sync it with your accounts. Unlike the previous app, this one allows you to connect it with accounts such as Facebook and Amazon Cloud Drive (as well as Dropbox). When creating a new album, you can have the images that are to be added to that album saved either on the device’s storage or the SD card.
It also features a secure vault where you can save the pictures you don’t want anyone else to see. Your photos are organized automatically by location and time. You can even search for your images by color – just tap on the search icon and choose from one of the colors in the bottom row.
3. Gallery Vault
If the most important feature in a gallery app needs to be the ability to hide images, then you’re going to like Gallery Vault. It can hide all types of files, but you will need to tap on the file you want to transfer manually to the vault. You can even change the app’s icon to hide your files even more!
To enable this feature, tap on the head icon (third one to the right) in the app’s main page, and then on the Icon Disguise option. That way you can make everyone think you’ve installed a calculator app instead. Some features are only available in the Pro version of the app, such as settings a fake password and an intruder selfie when the wrong password is entered.
4. Focus – Picture Gallery
If you’re looking for a simple and easy to use gallery app, Focus is a good option. The user interface doesn’t bombard you with features you might not even need, but it does offer quick access to your device’s camera. Just click on the camera icon at the top-right and snap away.
Even though you can’t completely change the app’s icon, you can change its theme. For example, you can choose from themes such as Black, Christmas, Fingerprint, Paint, and Cake. You can also make the app ignore the system setting and make it rotate images based on the device sensor. You only need to go into the app’s settings to do this.
5. Simple Gallery
Simple Gallery lives up to its name. It has the design of the stock Android gallery app but with features all its own. By tapping on the three vertical dots at the top-right, you can increase/decrease the column count to as many as you need.
The app is ad-free and only asks for necessary permissions, unlike other gallery apps. Since there is no way you can remember the date as to when a picture was taken, the app can make the date appear on the image, too.
Conclusion
The stock gallery app, unfortunately, doesn’t have everything you might want or need it to have. If that’s your case, you can always go for any of the previously mentioned apps. What do you look for in a gallery app? Share your thoughts in the comments.
This article was first published in July 2013 and was updated in May 2018.
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