Notifications and Ringtones and Pictures

[Rose4uKY]

All right I have a couple questions I had a folder on my old phone that said notifications in it was a bunch of text tones and ringtones both. so can I just copy all of them over to the notification folder on the new phone cuz there's also a ringtones folder I didn't know since some of these are short text tones and some more longer ringtones do they need to be separated?

And then another question about pictures I have a couple folders of pictures that I want on the new phone and I just copied and pasted them under the phone but then I realized I think they should have been under DCIM is that correct? Cuz I'm not sure but I want to make sure that I see these folders in my gallery and now I have a couple empty folders under phone and I can't get them deleted it says write protected on the empty folders but I have the folders with all the pictures in it under DCIM. As of right now when I go under gallery I'm seeing all my folders that I moved over from my S10+ to here.

 

[B. Diddy]

In general, tones for notifications should go in the /Notifications directory, and ringtones should go in the /Ringtones directory. The phone should look in those specific directories when you go to select one or the other.

If you move a photo image into /DCIM, it'll show up in the phone's camera roll. If you don't want it there, you can always move it into the /Pictures directory, which should still show up in your Gallery app, but just not as part of the camera roll.

 

[Rose4uKY]

In general, tones for notifications should go in the /Notifications directory, and ringtones should go in the /Ringtones directory. The phone should look in those specific directories when you go to select one or the other.

If you move a photo image into /DCIM, it'll show up in the phone's camera roll. If you don't want it there, you can always move it into the /Pictures directory, which should still show up in your Gallery app, but just not as part of the camera roll.

Okay thanks I was just confused like I had a folder named Kitty's with all my cat pictures that I wanted on the new phone and at first I just copied it to s21 ultra phone and I didn't know whether the whole folder needed to stay there or be under DCIM folder. But for some reason under phone not in the DCIM folder I had these empty folders that kept saying right protected but they finally let me delete them.

and I don't know why I had one folder called notifications it was on my SD card and it has both text tones and ringtones come by so I guess I'll try to separate I'm just not used to having a phone without an SD card thank you though for your help.

And there's also a folder on my new phone that I see on my computer that says SD card restored and it has all the same ringtones and notifications I guess I can delete that one since they're under notifications already right? and I'll just have to figure out which ones are ringtones and put them in the ringtone folder but thank you for your help.

 

[B. Diddy]

And there's also a folder on my new phone that I see on my computer that says SD card restored and it has all the same ringtones and notifications I guess I can delete that one since they're under notifications already right?

Sorry, I'm not sure about that -- that may be something to do with Smart Switch, which I don't have direct experience with.

 

[Rose4uKY]

Sorry, I'm not sure about that -- that may be something to do with Smart Switch, which I don't have direct experience with.

It's Ok I'll delete it I already copied stuff to the Notifications folder just need to sort out which ones are actually ringtones and put them in that folder. Thanks!

 

[Dualmonitors]

In general, tones for notifications should go in the /Notifications directory, and ringtones should go in the /Ringtones directory. The phone should look in those specific directories when you go to select one or the other.

...

@B. Diddy: may i please ask how i may find the Notifications directory and the Ringtones directory?

i'm not great at this, so step by step would be very much appreciated. thank you. sorry for needing so many details. i appreciate it. thx.

 

[Rose4uKY]

@B. Diddy: may i please ask how i may find the Notifications directory and the Ringtones directory?

i'm not great at this, so step by step would be very much appreciated. thank you. sorry for needing so many details. i appreciate it. thx.

I just plugged my phone into my computer and it showed my name and said Rose's S21 Ultra and I clicked on that. And my phone asked me if I wanted to charge only or transfer files and some other stuff. I already have a few folders saved from my old phone that I wanted on the new phone. Now how to find stuff after it's on the phone I don't know. I used to have Astro File Manager before maybe I need another type of app like tat. But B. Diddy will know more than me.

 

[B. Diddy]

@B. Diddy: may i please ask how i may find the Notifications directory and the Ringtones directory?

i'm not great at this, so step by step would be very much appreciated. thank you. sorry for needing so many details. i appreciate it. thx.

Which phone and which file manager do you have?

 

[Dualmonitors]

Which phone and which file manager do you have?

S21 Ultra

and two file managers: one called "File Manager", which is such a generic name but i can't seem to find anyway way to distinguish it from others with similar names, and also ASTRO.

please see the two icons for these two file managers below. thank you.

 

[B. Diddy]

Where did you install the one called "File Manager" from? I doubt that's the stock file manager -- Samsung's is typically called My Files. File manager apps in the Play Store are notorious for hiding adware and other annoying stuff, so I suggest uninstalling that one. (The trustworthy ones I usually recommend are Total Commander and Google's own Files By Google.)

If you use Astro, use the Explore option and look in Internal Storage. Do you see the /Notifications and /Ringtones directories there?

 

[Dualmonitors]

Where did you install the one called "File Manager" from? I doubt that's the stock file manager -- Samsung's is typically called My Files. File manager apps in the Play Store are notorious for hiding adware and other annoying stuff, so I suggest uninstalling that one. (The trustworthy ones I usually recommend are Total Commander and Google's own Files By Google.)

If you use Astro, use the Explore option and look in Internal Storage. Do you see the /Notifications and /Ringtones directories there?

@B. Diddy: thanks again for your follow up message.

i don't remember where i downloaded this "File Manager" from. i recall that i've had Astro for a while, and for some reason, i needed another file manager app once and ever since then, i've had these two, though i believe i've had Astro longer.

gosh, that sounds so scary that "... File manager apps in the Play Store are notorious for hiding adware and other annoying stuff", so i followed your advice and promptly uninstalled that "File Manager" app that i had. it's now gone from my phone. thank you so much!!

i looked at the star ratings of Total Commander and Files by Google and they are very close, both at 4+ stars, but Files by Google has an order of magnitude more downloads, so i thought that since google has access to everything already, it might not be as bad to allow Files by Google to have access to my phone's contents.

i DO indeed see a Ringtones file and a Notifications file! may i ask why you used the term "/Notifications and /Ringtones directory"? what is the nuance of calling it a /Ringtones DIRECTORY versus what looks like an ordinary "ringtones file" to me?

thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

The backslash is just a formality in a directory's pathname that designates how the directories are nested (much like how it is in Windows and MS-DOS before that). The full directory pathname for Ringtones is actually "/storage/emulated/0/Ringtones." The root user directory (i.e., the highest directory level the user can access) is /storage/emulated/0, so that part is usually dropped when a file manager app is showing the directory name.

Many file managers try to simplify things for the user, which is why you don't see the backslash. But sometimes the simplified interfaces can be confusing -- file managers often try to group together categories of files (like photos, for example), but those photos might be in a number of different directories. If you need to locate the exact directory where a file is located, this simplified view might not give you enough detail.

Files by Google is well designed, and you're right -- since it's from Google, you can trust that it doesn't contain extraneous garbage. I also like Total Commander because it doesn't have that simplified view (people who like it tend to be a bit more on the techy side).