Created Albums. Can't find them from inside other apps to attach pics

[tekmanic]

Where are albums that I have created, located? On my Pixel 2 or where? If I want to send a message and include a pic from an album, how do I do that? When I try to include a pic, all I see are pics on my camera file. I do not see a way to access pics from an album. No choice given for album. The Google Photos app is very confusing as to where pics, folders, and albums are located and how to access pics in each. Please tell me where my albums are located and how to access an album and it's pics from within other apps.

 

[jasonandrews25788]

I assume that you've deleted them from your device and they're on the cloud right now.
you must down;oad them to access them from another app.

 

[toiday]

Creating album only group the pictures together. It doesn't delete or move them to a different folder. If your app can't see them then you may have different issue. One I can think of right away is when you use the app the first time, it may ask for your permission to use pictures. Any chance you may decline that request?

 

[TraderGary]

I find that a good file management app is invaluable in exploring the file structure of my device. My current favorite is File Manager +. It allows me to also include my cloud storage file structure.

 

[GSDer]

My current favorite is File Manager +

I couldn't find an app named 'File Manager +' - perhaps you mean File Manager Plus https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.transformeddev.info.filemanager - it would be so nice if people would include a link to the application they mean rather than forcing readers to wade through all of the similarly named applications in the Google Play Store.
Feel free to use an application like Share Apps https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theronrogers.shareapps to expedite that.

 

[LeoRex]

Please tell me where my albums are located and how to access an album and it's pics from within other apps.

This is a common issue for people using Google Photos for the first time... Google Photos is not a local gallery application. It is a cloud-based photo and video management service. The things it creates exist in your Google account. So any album you create only exists up in Google Photos and there is no 'local' album that exists.

Everything about Photos is trying to encourage you to shift your thinking... Your pictures and videos are uploaded into Google Photos and it is that version that they want you to work with. If you want to share that photo or video outside of Photos, it will need a local copy to do so... and it will download the file if needed.

So, in a sense, they view the local, original copy as a locally cached version of the picture or video that is based in Google Photos.

Now, if you are someone who has spent years organizing things local on the phone, it might seem odd... But keep in mind that Photos has an extremely powerful and robust indexing engine. Depending on how your phone is configured (mostly if you have Google Location Services enabled), the need to organize your photos almost becomes moot. I can bring up every picture I took of my daughter at a recent trip to Disney.... my son playing baseball, etc. Every picture I've taken of clouds... you name it. It'll use facial recognition to automatically create albums, even my cat. A little while ago, my wife was pouring over thousands (and I do mean thousands) of pictures to find a shot of her brother wearing a hat. Took me a few seconds.

And if you load the Google Backup client on your computer, you can have every pic and video automatically sync'd to your computer... when the photo gets backed up to Photos, it will get pulled down to the computer. She makes handmade products and takes a ton of product pictures and they'll be sitting there on her computer by the time she walks over and opens the folder.

I finally got my wife to start sharing pictures, albums and videos through Photos... she won't admit it, but it's orders of magnitude easier than how she used to share them out.

 

[Seahawks1]

I feel the pain of the OP, and while the previous poster's message was very informative, I'm still left with the same problem. If I'm in a 3rd party app trying to upload pictures from my phone, the album's I've created (which I now better understand are really only recognized in the Cloud) are not visible to the other app. This leaves me sorting through the roughly 9700 photos in my Camera folder looking for the photos I've already moved into a designated album to make easier to find. Although Google Photos has an extremely impressive engine for finding specific photos, most 3rd party apps do not, and only have a much more rudimentary file manager to find the intended pictures.

The 3rd party app I'm using can see my "Device Folders". Is there a way to create one of those?

Thanks!

 

[Nauga]

Have you tried working in the other direction, from the Albums in the Photos app to a 3rd party app? If you open an album and select a photo, then hit the Share with icon, you should get a list of apps & contacts to chose from.

 

[GSDer]

The 3rd party app I'm using can see my "Device Folders". Is there a way to create one of those?

You could certainly create individual folders on your phone (using any file manager or perhaps your 3rd party picture application) and then move the appropriate pictures into the various folders that you've created. It would probably not be a good idea to copy them, as then you'd potentially end up with duplicates of the pictures being put in the cloud or albums.

 

[Rukbat]

Bad idea to move. Copy then, if the copy went okay, delete. If a move goes bad in the middle, you can lose the original and not have the copy.

 

[Mike Dee]

Bad idea to move. Copy then, if the copy went okay, delete. If a move goes bad in the middle, you can lose the original and not have the copy.

Great point

 

[Seahawks1]

I just double-checked that, it's usually my preferred method for photos, but the other app isn't appearing as an option to share to. I think it's because it's not a dedicated photo app, so pictures are just a small part of it.

 

[Seahawks1]

Have you tried working in the other direction, from the Albums in the Photos app to a 3rd party app? If you open an album and select a photo, then hit the Share with icon, you should get a list of apps & contacts to chose from.

I just double-checked that, it's usually my preferred method for photos, but the other app isn't appearing as an option to share to. I think it's because it's not a dedicated photo app, so pictures are just a small part of it.

 

[Seahawks1]

You could certainly create individual folders on your phone (using any file manager or perhaps your 3rd party picture application) and then move the appropriate pictures into the various folders that you've created. It would probably not be a good idea to copy them, as then you'd potentially end up with duplicates of the pictures being put in the cloud or albums.

Sorry for the double post, couldn't figure out how to delete the original.


This is a good idea, I'll try it and see if it works.
Thanks!