How to Hide Old Photos of Your Ex on Your Android
If you’ve broken up with your partner, you might want to stop using your phone to remind you of their existence. Photo galleries on most modern phones automatically create all sorts of interesting collages and slideshows, which is great when the memories in question are happy ones, but can come into play after a painful breakup. I’ve written before about how to get rid of your ex’s photos from your iPhone , and this guide will help people who use Android phones do the same.
It should be noted that different Android phone manufacturers use their own versions of the photo gallery app. The steps to hiding or deleting your ex’s photos from these apps may vary, so I’ll focus on the app that comes on most Android phones sold in the US: Google Photos. This is the photo backup service of choice for most people using Android. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to automatically delete all photos of any person, but it does have some nifty workarounds that let you quickly hide photos of your ex.
Hide a specific person from Google Photos
To hide all photos of someone from your camera roll, open Google Photos and tap the profile icon in the top right corner. Go to Photo Settings > Settings > Memories > Hide People and Pets . This will show a grid of all the people and pets found in your photos. Select all the people (or pets) you want to hide, and you’ll no longer see their images in Memories or other highlights created by Google Photos.
Hide photos taken on a specific date from Google Photos
Google Photos also creates memories based on specific dates in the calendar year. This could lead to offers to watch a slideshow of your anniversary with your ex, a birthday party, or other important moments in your life. You can also prevent Google Photos from creating these memories. Go to Profile icon > Photo Settings > Settings > Memories > Hide Dates . Add the dates you want to exclude, and Google Photos will exclude all photos from days when they create memories.
Archive all photos of a specific person
If you’re sure you don’t want to see photos of your ex, but don’t want to delete those photos right away, use Google Photos’ Archive feature. This will move those photos into a separate folder and prevent them from being added to new memories created by the service. To do this, open Google Photos and long-press on any picture of your ex. Keep scrolling and selecting all the photos you don’t want to see until you find them all. When you’re done, swipe right on the bottom toolbar and select Archive .
Completely delete photos of your ex
It’s a nuclear option, but it requires a lot more manual work in Google Photos than in Photos on iPhone. You will need to manually select all of your ex’s photos and select the “Delete” option from the bottom toolbar to get rid of those photos permanently. They will still be in the Bin folder, which can be accessed by going to the Library tab in Google Photos and selecting Bin . Deleted photos are permanently deleted after 60 days.