It doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but it still happens: after copying or moving photos from one folder to another on an Android mobile, the order of the photos becomes a mess. The photos you have moved are placed at the top of the gallery, despite being older. Luckily, there are ways to fix it.
When it happens, it is very frustrating, as it can take a long time to find the recent photos to upload or send them in applications like Instagram or Facebook. We tell you how to fix it, to have the photos back in order.
Why are photos cluttered on mobile
Many applications show the latest photos you have in the gallery, but they do not have a standardized way of doing it or ordering the results. They can use the file’s creation date, the modified date, the date that is included in the EXIF metadata, or the order in which it was included in the Android media provider. Different methods result in different results.
Most current gallery apps use the photo’s EXIF metadata, so they are immune to folder switching, although there are still many toApplications that are bundled with dates after moving photos. Without going any further, Instagram is one of them.
That is, if you have 20,000 photos in your gallery and you decide to create a folder to include the oldest photos, Instagram -and other applications, including some gallery applications- will show those older photos on top. If you’ve moved thousands of photos, those thousands of photos will appear higher than the ones you took the day before.
The solution: an app
Once the damage is done, there is not much you can do except resign yourself or try to use apps to fix dates. That is, even if you move the photos back to where they were, they will still be marked as more recent.
An application specifically designed for this situation is Dates Gallery, available on Google Play. It’s free with a great but: fix 50 free photos. To use it without limits, it is necessary to pay 1.89 euros.
Reorder gallery after copying files
Before checking out, consider that it is not a foolproof application. Basically what it does is try to find out if the date of a photo or video is correct If not, suggest what date it is. To do this, it uses various methods, such as trying to identify whether the file includes the date in its name, which is relatively common in many apps.
After opening Gallery Dates, it analyzes the Android media storage and shows you, in the tab Bad Date those that you feel need to be corrected. It is important that you review them, especially those that have a giant Perhaps (or not) superimposed, since in this case the application is not too convinced of having determined the date correctly.
Select the photos and videos to which you want to fix the date and, in the first tab of the application, press Restore Average Date. What will happen next depends on the version of Android you use, because over time Android has limited or incorporated new functionality. This is the abstract:
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In versions prior to Android 5: fix android media storage, but cannot change file dates or EXIF.
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From Android 5 to Android 7: fix Android storage and EXIF dates of photos.
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From Android 8 to Android 9: is when the app is most complete. Modify the media storage, EXIF, and date of files.
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With Android 10 or higher: Android does not allow apps to edit the media storage anymore, so the EXIF is changed and you have to wait for the media storage to update itself.
However, if your gallery is totally cluttered and you don’t know what to do, it is a good option as long as you use it carefully, reviewing the suggested dates to avoid incorrect ones. Keep in mind, of course, the different limitations that the application has depending on the version of Android you have installed on your mobile.
