Why are photos showing up in my gallery that I didn't take?

[AC Question]

When I look at the gallery on my Galaxy S5, I see photos (now and then) that I did not take.

 

[Sanethia Walker]

I'm recently experiencing the same thing with my Galaxy Note 4. ..Very creepy ,pictures are nice ,majestic even but creepy photos that I know I didn't take...Phantom photos...before I hurry to delete them.. I hit the info of pictures to see if I can track where it came from ...I only see a time stamp and the picture format with is always jpeg..

 

[Rukbat]

It sounds as if some web browser isn't marking its cache folder to not show pictures. Try using another browser for a while and see if that clears it up. (In order for you to see a picture on a site, the browser has to download it to your phone. But it's supposed to go to a folder with a file named .nomedia, so that nothing in that folder will show, except in the browser.)

 

[Darryl Goldman]

I download photos from my Android phone and hundreds of funny looking photos appear as if I had taken them as screenshots. When I look at my Android gallery they are not there but when I download to computer there are hundreds that show up! Help!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Did you look at the above response? It's not uncommon for apps and ad networks to cache images on the phone. If the app responsible for those images doesn't add a .nomedia file to that directory where those cached images are, then they show up in your gallery app as well.

 

[Rukbat]

How are you downloading them to the computer unless you're seeing them on the phone (from the computer, of course)?

The computer doesn't respect a .nomedia file in a folder, it still shows you everything in the folder. Gallery ignores any folder like that.