Trigger a Gallery Refresh?

[STLSi]

I did a search and checked all the FAQs/How-tos but didn't find anything on this:

Does anyone know how to force the Gallery app to refresh the pics/albums located on the SD card(s)? I've tried killing the app, clearing the cache, and clearing its data, but nothing seems to work. Short of restarting the phone, I haven't figured out a way to do this. Maybe a better question is: how do I trigger the phone to re-scan the SD card(s) without having to restart it?

 

[ragnarokx]

Try going to Settings>SD card & phone storage>Unmount Sd card>Mount SD card. That should trigger the media scanner, and your gallery should refresh.

 

[loraque]

I have also noticed that the SD cards get re-scanned if you connect to a PC in mass storage mode and disconnect.

 

[STLSi]

Try going to Settings>SD card & phone storage>Unmount Sd card>Mount SD card. That should trigger the media scanner, and your gallery should refresh.

That seems to have worked though it's kinda dumb that I have to use a workaround to fix this, but that's another conversation for another thread entirely.

 

[Griffspen]

Along these same lines, how do you refresh all of the thumbnails whether on the SD card or not? Many of my thumbnails are not correct for what the actual picture is.

I've tried many things, some of which triggered a media scan, but none of them have updated the thumbnails properly.

 

[s2h2golf]

Along these same lines, how do you refresh all of the thumbnails whether on the SD card or not? Many of my thumbnails are not correct for what the actual picture is.

I've tried many things, some of which triggered a media scan, but none of them have updated the thumbnails properly.

I've had several problems where my Gallery would FC and create duplicate thumbnail images of my pictures - when I would connect it to the computer and look, there was only one copy, but the Gallery would show 4 copies. So here's what I did the last 2 times this happened (the first time I re-flashed the ROM I was using - way overkill!).

Connect the phone to the PC and mount the SD cards. Find the folder with your pictures (for me, I had a folder named Photos and then I found the dcim folder that had the camera pics). Select the folder(s) and cut them to the desktop of the PC - this leaves no pictures in the Gallery. Disconnect your phone from the PC and check the Gallery - there should be no photos in it. Reconnect your phone to the PC and mount the SD cards again. Find the photo folders you moved to your computer and put them back on the SD card. Disconnect from the computer and check out the Gallery again - all the thumbnails should be correct.

 

[jayfiled]

That seems to have worked though it's kinda dumb that I have to use a workaround to fix this, but that's another conversation for another thread entirely.

What if the pics are on internal storage? Days now and still no refresh. Pics taken from the camera appear instantly though..

 

[davidmalck]

You can use File Selector, it regenerates the media quickly:
1. Open images
2. Click on More > Open media manager
3. Clear data en Media Manager
4. Click on More > Update media

 

[Manuel Murbach]

Try going to Settings>SD card & phone storage>Unmount Sd card>Mount SD card. That should trigger the media scanner, and your gallery should refresh.

For me, it helped copying a small file from internal storage to the SD card.
Unmount or restart didn't trigger anything.
Only after the file-copy I saw the new files on the SD card (which I copied there externally.
Galaxy S9