Question Samsung Gallery App

[Jhatn]

On 6/9, I updated my Samsung Galaxy A35 5G phone to Android 15 (One UI v7.0).

Yesterday I received a notice from an app I've NEVER used before & so I did not open the app until finding out it was a notice from the Samsung Gallery App, that came pre-installed.
Since I had NEVER opened the Samsung Gallery App before:
1. Why did I get a notice from it?
2. Why did it automatically create some Story for me?
3. How did my pictures from my SD Card get synced to Samsung (I don't sync anything to Samsung Cloud)?
4. How do I stop my pictures from going into the Samsung Gallery App & how do I DELETE the Samsung Gallery App?

 

[SpookDroid]

The Gallery app cannot be deleted (it's a system app, part of the OS, and needed for media handling). It will automatically read any picture/video files on your phone and external media (again, part of the OS, nothing nefarious about it, that's just needed for media to be used by the phone... This app is just a 'portal' to see it).

The Stories option can be turned off from the Gallery's Settings (alongside the notifications for any story suggestions). The app will never upload data to Samsung (or OneDrive, the other option on Samsung phones) unless you activate that option (clearly visible inside the app's Settings).

 

[B. Diddy]

This kind of thing isn't that unusual. The update likely included new features in the Gallery app, like automatically creating Stories. I just opened my Gallery app on my Galaxy Tab S9 FE+, and saw that "Auto create stories" is defaulted to ON. However, the "Sync with OneDrive" option is off.

Are you certain your SD card photos are synced to OneDrive, or is it just that the Gallery was utilizing your locally saved photos to create the Story?

 

[Jhatn]

@SpookDroid, @B. Diddy

Thank you for the replies.
I've never used the Samsung Gallery app before & all pictures & videos I take using my phone get saved to the SD Card & NO WHERE else. I do not use any sync function & definitely not OneDrive.

So is there a way to stop my pictures & videos from getting collected in the Samsung Gallery app?
Looking at the Storage section of the Gallery app's Info page, if I Clear Cache, Clear Data & tap on Force Stop; will that put the app into a 'sleeping mode' so that it will stop being active?

 

[B. Diddy]

Force Stop will most likely just temporarily stop the app. It may open again in the background based on how the system operates. It doesn't look like the app can be Disabled either.

You could look into a solution like Package Disabler Pro, but I'm not sure if disabling the Gallery might possibly break something else.

 

[SpookDroid]

Like I mentioned before, you CANNOT stop the Gallery App from showing you your media on the phone; it is a part of the system. You can opt to use a different Gallery app, but the 'innards' needed for other apps to work as well are baked into the Gallery app itself and will be needed for even others to work.

Unless any cloud options are enabled (and they're all opt-in), the Gallery app isn't collecting any data on you or anything. If you disable all AI and story features for this app, they won't process that.

Same thing with the File Manager app from Samsung. While you'll see all files on your device, if you disable it, other apps that need data access may not work.