Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Despite the simple premise, not all gallery apps are the same. Some of them work fantastically with great designs and quickness. Others suffer from poor design and slowness. The good news is that you have plenty of options to replace yours if needed. Whether it’s sorting pics, hiding them away, or you just want something clean and quick, we have you covered with the best gallery apps for Android. Don’t forget that OEM gallery apps are still quite good so it might be hard to find something objectively better than some of them.
The best gallery apps for Android
1Gallery
Price: Free / $2.99
1Gallery is the newest gallery app on the list. It’s also a mix between a standard gallery app and a gallery vault app. The app works like any standard gallery and you can view your photos by date and in grid form. However, the app also lets you hide your photos and videos behind a pin, pattern, or fingerprint lock. The hidden files are not only hidden but also encrypted for your privacy. Some other smaller features include a super simple photo and video editor function as well as a light and dark theme. It’s cheap, decent, and it should get better over time.
A+ Gallery
Price: Free / $9.99
A+ Gallery is a simple gallery app. You can do the usual things like managing your photos, creating photo albums, and sharing your photos. Along with that, it has support for Dropbox, Amazon Cloud, and Facebook. That means you can view those photos as well. Additionally, it comes with a vault feature where you can keep private images. The design is solid and it’s not difficult to use. It combines Material Design and iOS styles into a single look. You can download it for free with an optional pro version available as an in-app purchase. It’s not bad as far as gallery apps go.
Aves Gallery is one of the stronger options for gallery apps on Android. It’s free, open-source, and it hits all of the right checkboxes. The app handles a bunch of different file formats, including rarer ones like TIFFs, SVGs, and more. There is also support for video files. The UI is minimal and clean, although whether it’s good or not is subject to personal taste. We think it’s quite good, though. The features work without issue, and we’re hard-pressed to say anything bad about it because there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong. This is one of the good ones.
F-Stop Gallery
Price: Free / $4.99
F-Stop Media Gallery is one of the older gallery apps. This one features a flatter, cleaner design accentuated by Material Design with a few really decent features. You can search your photos based on their metadata which is kind of awesome and you can add tags to your photos for easier organization. It also reads metadata (including EXIF, XMP, and IPTC info), and there is a Smart Albums feature that helps you sort your stuff on its own. Best of all, it plays GIFs! This is easily one of the most flashy gallery apps for those who like their stuff loud. Some of the features require the pro version, but the free version is still very functional.
Gallery Elite
Price: Free / $4.99
Gallery Elite is a serviceable and functional gallery app. It boasts a good level of customization, simple features, and a decent UI. The app includes things like swipe gestures to move around the app, and you can use it fairly well with just one hand. The settings menu is easy to navigate, and it pulled up every image we tried in our testing. There is a mild sense of clutter, especially in our screenshots folder, but you get used to it relatively quickly. The premium version is a single in-app purchase, so there are no subscriptions to gum things up. It’s quite good.
Gallery Vault
Price: Free / $3.99
Gallery Vault does almost exactly what the name says it does. It creates a private vault for your photos to keep them away from prying eyes. With it, you can hide photos, videos, and any other type of file that this app supports. You can also hide the icon so no one knows how to access it, but you get alerts if someone breaks in, and it supports some fingerprint-enabled devices (Samsung devices only for now). It’s a good option in terms of gallery apps if you want some privacy, and you can try out the free version before you buy it.
Google Photos
Price: Free
As with most lists, here is the mandatory Google option. The Google Photos app is a cloud storage app where you can upload as many photos and videos as you want. The only downside is that the images and video will be compressed in Google’s High-Quality setting. However, the app can also see your device folders to view any stuff you haven’t uploaded. Unfortunately, Google ended the free part of it starting in June 2021, so this isn’t quite the easy recommendation it used to be, but it’s still a good gallery app.
PhotoMap
Price: Free / $2.99
PhotoMap is one of the more unique gallery apps. It lets you take pictures and save them via location. You can then use a map to view your photos based on where you took them. For instance, you’d have to navigate to the beach to see the pictures you took near the beach. It’s one of the cleaner GPS-based gallery apps that we could find. It’s also just fun to play with. You can download it for free or pay for the pro version for $2.99 as an in-app purchase. There are even AR features to play with.
Scene
Price: Free / $2.99 per month
Scene is a gallery app that also does other things. It’s fairly simple as a gallery app. It shows every image in your library with some basic separation by date. You can create galleries as needed or scroll through them. The app also does a calendar view that we thought was pretty unique. There are some minor features, like putting your photos in a video slideshow, that some people may like. The premium version is a subscription. It adds an unlimited sync option, drag-and-drop organizing, and some other small things that you can honestly live without depending on your needs. It’s not bad.
Simple Gallery Pro
Price: Free / $0.99
Simple Gallery Pro is, well, a simple gallery app. The app is fully offline with no unnecessary permissions. In addition, you get an image and video search, support for 32 languages, a favorite function for quick access, a recycle bin to recover lost photos, and plenty of ways to filter your massive collection. There is also a security feature with a fingerprint unlock for added privacy. There was a free version of the app. However, only the premium version gets updates now. That’s not a big deal because the app is only $0.99. Plus, it’s open-source, and it supports most types of photos and videos. The developer has some bugs they’re working out, but otherwise, it’s pretty solid.
If we missed any of the best gallery apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.
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