How to organize photos on Android with albums in Google Photos or Samsung Gallery

Decide which app holds your albums

Many Android phones have two photo apps: Google Photos and a manufacturer gallery such as Samsung Gallery. Albums created in one app are not automatically the same collection in the other, so choose the app you open most and stay with it for your main albums.

If you back up with Google Photos, albums made there are part of your Google Photos library. Albums in a gallery app are organized by that app on your device. Check where an album appears before you rely on it.

Create albums in Google Photos

Google’s help page gives the steps for Android. Photos you remove from an album stay in your library, and deleting an album leaves its photos in the library unless you delete them separately. An album is a way to find pictures, not a second copy.

Albums can hold up to 20,000 items according to Google’s help, which is more than most personal albums will need. Only the creator can make most edits, and collaborators can add photos and videos.

1. Open Google Photos, then touch and hold a photo and select the others you want.
2. Choose Add to album and give it a title, then tap the checkmark.
3. To add more later, open the album and tap Add to album.
4. Find your albums under Collections.

Create albums in Samsung Gallery

Samsung’s support page describes opening Gallery, tapping the plus icon, choosing Album, naming it and picking photos or videos. You then choose Copy to leave the originals where they are, or Move to relocate them. Screens and settings may vary by software version and model.

Choose between them on purpose. Copy leaves the original where it was, so the files exist in two places, while Move relocates the original. Neither is a substitute for a backup.

Keep the system small

An album should answer a question you actually ask, such as where the trip pictures, family photos or items to print are. A short list of broad albums, named after places and events, is easier to maintain than dozens of tiny ones.

Review the list after a month and merge collections you never open. If you stop halfway through a library, write down the month you reached so the next session starts there.

Sort first, then file

Filing is easier after clutter is gone. GallerySort combines both steps: swipe left to delete or right to keep, then add the photo to an album. It works on your phone’s photos and does not change how Google Photos syncs.

Back up important pictures before a big cleanup, and see our guides on cleaning up screenshots and chat media and on how to organize iPhone photos for the same routine on other devices.