Extracted files from zip archive are not seen by any photo gallery

brunetton commented 3 years ago

Context

Hi, I'm facing a big problem, as I sadly own a Huawei phone privated from google services (so playstore) and the only open source app I can find on F-droid that can extract zip files is Simple File Manager.

Problem description

When unzipping some photos and video received from another phone bundled in a zip file, the extracted files are not seen by any image gallery app (including Simple Gallery, that I use a lot): Facebook messenger, Whatsapp, etc

Steps to reproduce

preparations
- download 2 images from internet, make sure that you see then in Simple Gallery in "gallery" mode (not folders mode)
- use Simple File Manager to make a zip archive of those 2 files
- delete original files and ensure that you don't see them anymore in Simple Gallery
extraction and problem
- extract those 2 files in the same place (in a sub-dir, or not, it doesn't change anything)
- open Simple Gallery

Problem

The files are not visible in gallery mode (I can't find them neither in facebook messenger)

Expected

The files are expected to be seen in gallery

Do you have any clue ? I checked files permissions, I don't think this is linked, not sure

Update (workaround)

I found a wordaround: when moving the extracted files from a folder to another, the files are seen from various gallery applications

tibbi commented 3 years ago

you can also try adding the folder in the galleries app Settings -> Manage included folders

brunetton commented 3 years ago

you can also try adding the folder in the galleries app Settings -> Manage included folders

The standard download folder is by default included in watched folders, that was the idea of the "make sure that you see then in Simple Gallery in "gallery" mode" check of my first step.

So it doesn't change anything

k3b commented 3 years ago

In old android versions the android mediascanner adds new files automatically to the media database and made them visible in gallery apps.

Since i updated my phone from android-7.1 to android-10 this does not happen any more.

Consequence: new images are not visible in the gallery (i.e. whatsapp images)

Possible solution: for Android-10 and later ask the media scanner to add the zip-extracted files.

brunetton commented 3 years ago

In old android versions the android mediascanner adds new files automatically to the media database and made them visible in gallery apps.

Since i updated my phone from android-7.1 to android-10 this does not happen any more.

Consequence: new images are not visible in the gallery (i.e. whatsapp images)

Possible solution: for Android-10 and later ask the media scanner to add the zip-extracted files.

Interesting ! This looks to be the heart of the problem indeed.

@tibbi can you think you can implement this ?

gitbq commented 2 years ago

First off , i love these apps!! I appreciate all the work in producing them, and understand a dev must make decisions as to what functionality to include.

I have exactly the same problem. Using a pixel 4 with calyxos running android 12. As part of my workflow, every week I need to do this exact thing. If I extract using the default aosp file manager I can extract selected files directly to a specific folder. These photos are then visible in the default file manager, default photo gallery, simple file manager and simple photo gallery. If I extract using simple file manager, these photos are not visible in any other app. These include the default aosp file manager or default photo gallery or even, perhaps most strangely, the simple photo gallery app. These files are only visible in simple file manager.

Is there any way to make these extracted files to be visible for all applications?

SimpleMobileTools / Simple-File-Manager