Try these hidden photo tricks on your smartphone

By Kim Komando

May 3, 2022

© Info723783 | Dreamstime.com

Have you stopped to think about your smartphone camera? Probably not. We’ve gotten used to carrying around high-quality cameras everywhere we go. We can snap photos with abandon without having to think about the price of film. We don’t even need to fiddle with the settings much, though we can if we want to.

Even the best phone cameras are limited by the subject you’re shooting. You can capture the perfect shot with ideal lighting only to find that something snuck into the photo. You can take the picture again or you can try removing the object. Tap or click here to learn how.

Finding the one image you’re looking for can be a challenge when you have free rein to take as many as you want. And how do you hide your photos from prying eyes? Read on for more information.

Find your photos fast

With the power to take thousands of photos with your phone thanks to large storage capacities and cloud access, you may be overwhelmed.

You can search for photos on your phone to narrow things down and find the one you want. Here’s how to do it on iPhone.

• Open the Photos app.
• Tap Search and type what you are looking for in the search bar. Try a person’s name, date or location. You can also search categories such as beach or selfies or events such as concerts or birthdays.
• Use the Moments, People, Faces and Categories options to help organize your searches.

Have an Android phone? You can search by people, things and places in the Google Photos app:

• On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app.
• Sign in to your Google Account.
• At the bottom, tap Search.
  • To search by text:
    • Tap on the search box at the top, and enter what you want to find, for example:
    • New York City
    • A name or nickname, if you’ve labeled people or pets
  • To search using suggestions:
    • You can explore categories of:
      • People & Pets: all of the photos and videos of your close ties
      • Places: the map lets you explore your photos in physical space
      • Things: objects and concepts we’ve detected in your photos
    • You can also scroll to the bottom for more practical searches, like:
      • Screenshots, Selfies, and Videos

Hide your photos

When a friend asks to use your phone or you want to show them some photos from a recent trip, what do you do? You hand it over. Then your nerves start kicking in. Didn’t you take some personal photos on that last trip? Your friend doesn’t need to see that.

Luckily, you can hide photos you don’t want others to see.

For iPhone

• Open the Photos app.
• Select an album, then tap Select in the upper-right corner.
• Select the photos and videos that you want to hide.
• Tap the Share button.
• Tap Hide, then Hide Photo(s) to confirm.

To find your hidden photos and videos, scroll down to Utilities and tap Hidden. You can unhide a file by tapping the Share button and selecting Unhide.

For Android

You can save sensitive photos and videos to a folder protected by your device screen lock in the Google Photos app.

Items in the Locked Folder won’t appear in the Photos grid, memories, search or albums and won’t be available to other apps on your device that have access to your photos and videos. NOTE: This feature is only available on Android 6 and later.

How to set up Locked Folder:

• Open the Google Photos app.
• Go to Library > Utilities > Locked Folder.
• Tap Set up Locked Folder.
• Follow the on-screen instructions to unlock your device. If your folder is empty, you’ll find “Nothing here yet.”
  • If you don’t have a screen lock set up for your device, you’ll need to set one up to use Locked Folder. Learn how to set or change a screen lock on your Android phone here.

How to move photos or videos to Locked Folder:

• Select the photos and videos you want in Locked Folder.
• At the top right, tap More > Move to Locked Folder. 
• Tap Move.

You can find items you’ve moved to Locked Folder in the Photos app library under Utilities.

Google Lens

If you have an Android device, you can use the Google Lens app on text and objects. Simply point your camera at an object and tap it to get more information. You can also tap Speak and ask a question.

The same goes for text. Use Lens to scan text and get more information or even translate the text to your native language in real-time. Tap or click here for more ways you can use Google Lens to explore the world around you.

Keep reading

Best ways to save your phone’s photos before it’s too late

It’s so much easier to edit videos on your iPhone now thanks to this update

Tags: Android, Apple iPhone, apps, camera, Google, Google Lens, Google Photos, Locked Folder, photos, smartphones