Question Asking about where tags on Samsung Gallery app are stored! Specific details following

[retinolReynaldo]

I have a Samsung Galaxy s23 Ultra. I'm not sure if that impacts the following, but I wouldn't know! I've been experimenting with an external storage USB drive. It works and is accessible through My Files only. I was planning to transfer dump a lot of saved pictures and videos onto it, but I've invested a lot in tagging this data on Gallery for searchability. I noticed that when I moved a single tagged video onto the drive as an experiment and then moved it back to external storage, the tags it had would disappear. It seems like a transfer loss, but if tags aren't applied to the photo and instead saved on Gallery in some way, it might just be that they're deleted whenever something is "removed" from Gallery's purview. I'm thinking about making a tool to read or carry over this tagging data that's compatible with the device I have, but I need some preliminary information to start.

 

[VidJunky]

Welcome to Android Central forums. There is metadata for images and videos that attaches to the media. This information includes technical information about the camera that took the images or videos, the date it was taken, the author, copy right notes, description and other information. Some apps can see and use this information, like album art for your music, that's a type of metadata for that file, but what I imagined you doing was tagging Sally, Wilson, and Mr Snuffles the family pet in your Gallery app which you are correct does not attach to the photos themselves outside of the gallery and isn't restored when the file is added back. I personally have never done too much with metadata but there are metadata apps that allow you to change and add data to the media file itself. Maybe Gallery or Photos can use this, but I'm not sure if it will do people. This is what Gemini said about it.

Yes, both Samsung Gallery and Google Photos can use metadata, but they do so differently. Both can read the metadata (like date, time, and location) to display information and organize photos. However, when saving, editing, or transferring photos, Google Photos generally preserves the original metadata, while Samsung's Gallery app may strip some metadata for security reasons when sharing.

With Gallery (Samsung) and Photos (Google) they both offer a cloud backup. Using their backup service keeps your tags, allows you to remove the files from your device while still having access to the media anywhere you can sign into your account.