I use my phone to capture product images and private moments, and in the last two months alone, I’ve taken around 1,045 photos. My Samsung Gallery app shows nearly 20,000 photos in total. Together, they occupy about 37GB of precious storage, with some photos dating back to when I was still in school, nearly 15 years ago.
Apart from the fact that it takes forever to find the photo I am looking for, I get a constant low-storage warning when installing new apps. After a disciplined cleanup process, I finally got my ever-expanding photo library under control using only the Samsung Gallery app available on my phone.
To see how many photos you have, open the gallery app, then long-press any photo and select all to see the total.
Start with a backup
Makes it easy to restore if you delete anything important
When the task is to clean up a massive library of over 20,000 images, you’ll need to delete images in bulk. Sometimes, you might end up deleting something that you’d want to keep, so a backup can help you restore the files.
I backed up my entire photo library to my PC using a USB cable first. Connect your phone to your PC, set USB mode to File transfer, and copy the DCIM folder to your computer. If you prefer cloud backups, Google Photos works brilliantly for this. Enable backup in the app settings, and it’ll sync everything automatically. For those already in the Microsoft ecosystem, OneDrive’s camera backup feature does the same job. The Windows Photos app also offers a direct import option that organizes photos by date as they are copied.
Delete what you don’t need, but slowly
Delete one day’s worth of photos every day
My past attempts at tidying up my gallery were spectacular failures, mostly because I tried to clean up years of clutter in just a couple of hours. This time, I decided to take it slow. Instead of deleting everything at once, I searched the Gallery app each day for photos taken on that same date in previous years and deleted the ones I didn’t need. I also favorited the ones I liked. Spending just a few minutes a day, my library finally started shrinking as the days went by.
You can start by deleting stuff that you don’t need. For example, screenshots, receipts, scanned files, and everything that you didn’t look at twice. The Gallery app automatically categorizes files into different albums, so you don’t have to dig through the entire library to find these redundant files.
In the Gallery app, open the Albums tab, then tap the Screenshots folder. Now go through the screenshots and delete them in bulk. I would advise against deleting everything at once, as you may still have taken a screenshot of something important. Do it in batches.
Repeat the steps for the images you may have downloaded from the Internet, shared from other apps like Quick Share, images downloaded from WhatsApp, and so on. Once all the side quests are over, you can jump into your Camera roll and repeat the process. Favorite what you like; might as well rename more important files and delete anything that’s unnecessary or a duplicate. Rinse and repeat until you have only the quality images left that you truly want to keep.
Additionally, hide your private photos that you want to keep but do not necessarily want to appear in the main library. In the Samsung Gallery app, you can move files to a Secure Folder, but similar options are available on almost every Android phone’s photos app. This removes the files from your main library and keeps them safe from others with a PIN.
Best practices for a clutter-free gallery
Favorite what you like and delete low-quality photos right away
Once you have cleaned up your Gallery, it’s important to follow best practices to avoid cluttering it again. I’ve developed a few habits that have kept my photo library manageable ever since my big cleanup.
First, I immediately add the correct names to the files I want to keep. Instead of leaving photos as “IMG_20241123,” I rename important ones to things like “product_name.png” or “location_name.png.” This makes searching much easier. If I liked the shot enough to capture it, I decided right then if it was worth keeping by adding it to my favorites. The favorite feature creates a curated collection of my best shots that I can quickly access.
Most importantly, I delete low-quality photos immediately. Blurry shots, accidental pocket photos, duplicate angles, they all go straight to trash instead of sitting in my Gallery for months. It takes two seconds to delete a bad photo right after taking it, but it takes hours to sort through thousands of them later.
Make it a habit
Today, my gallery is not the mess it was a few months ago. I have only a couple thousand photos that I like, and I’ve favorited the ones I like the most. However, if I take my eyes off it, the Gallery will become a mess in no time, and I would have to repeat the process.
Instead, I now delete any photos I don’t want to keep immediately. Plus, I spend a few minutes every week removing anything that’s been added to my Gallery but not from the Camera app. Cleaning up your gallery may look like an uphill task, and it is if you try to do it at once. Go slow, but consistently, and you can turn it into a well-organized collection that’ll make you feel good every time you open the Gallery app.