The 6 Best Gallery Apps for Android | 2024 Edition

Let’s face it: most of us don’t think much about our gallery apps. Many of us stick with the manufacturer-developed default gallery apps, while others opt for the ultra-popular Google Photos. But what if neither of those options works for you? That’s where our list of the best gallery apps for Android comes into the picture.

There are many options, but these 6 gallery apps are the ones everyone should check out first. From minimalist offline-only apps to cloud-friendly options, there’s bound to be something here for most of you.

Simple Gallery

Simple Gallery is a minimalist and lightweight gallery app that’s likely my favorite of all the ones currently available for Android. It’s not the most feature-packed gallery app, but it’s easy to use, looks great, and runs like a dream.

As the name suggests, Simple Gallery won’t wow you with a fancy UI or complex options. Instead, it opens to a simple grid with all your device’s image folders ready to browse. Tap on one, and you get a straightforward grid view with all the images, with several grouping and view type options available per folder.

You can adjust the number of columns Simple Gallery displays, although this sadly applies to all your subfolders, with no way of having different grids for different folders. Digging into the app’s settings menu opens up even more options. These range from aesthetic options like app theme and icon colors to how the app behaves when opening videos and fullscreen media (for example). 

Simple Gallery also has security features, allowing you to password-protect the whole app or specific features. You can set the app to require a password when deleting and moving files or showing hidden photos (or both). The app also has a Recycle Bin that stores photos temporarily after deletion, in case you change your mind.

Simple Gallery is a straightforward app and the first one you should check out if you want to move away from Google Photos. It has almost everything you need, with excellent file format support (RAW, SVG, MP4, and Panoramic photos, for example) in the mix. The only real omission here is cloud storage, but some of you may prefer that.

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Pricing

Simple Gallery is free, but some features discussed here are only available in the Pro version ($2.99). You don’t have to pay for Pro, though: the FOSS (free and open source) APK available on the official GitHub has all the Pro features (and no ads!) for free. All you need to do is to sideload it onto your device.

Google Play Store: Simple Gallery | Simple Gallery Pro

GitHub: Simple Gallery

Aves Gallery

Aves Gallery is another excellent Android gallery app and one of the best-looking ones available. It’s also a great option if you have a lot of photos, as its filtering and search options are a cut above the competition.

Aves Galley has a full-on Material You design and an immersive full-screen experience when browsing your gallery. The floating search and toolbar disappear when you scroll, so you can see your photo grid uninterrupted. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but trust us when we say that it makes for a great experience when in use.

File support is excellent, with the app handling uncommon file formats such as multi-page TIFF, AVI, and SVG. Panorama photos, 360° photos, and motion photos are all fair game, too. 

Aves Gallery stands out for its search and filtering functionality. To start with, there’s an image title filter that can help you narrow down your images. But you also can filter by date, albums, countries, cities, ratings, and metadata, so you should be able to find the right photo even in the hugest gallery—handy if you have one of the best tablets for photographers and snap photos everywhere you go.

I also like Aves’s stats menu. This breaks down your images by file types, top locations (countries and specific cities), and your most populated photo folders. A yearly image frequency graph will also appeal to the stats nerds out there. It’s a diversion, sure, but it’s a fun one.

I think Aves Gallery is neck-and-neck with Simple Gallery in the “best Android gallery” stakes. Both look great and offer many features and customization options—and, on a slightly disappointing note, they similarly lack cloud storage support. Try both out and see which one works best for you!

Pricing

Aves Gallery is entirely free and open source. The APK is also available for sideloading from the official GitHub.

Google Play Store: Aves Gallery

GitHub: Aves Gallery

Piktures

Piktures is a gallery app with a modern interface and a generally classy look. But while it looks great, I think Piktures’s main appeal is its impressive cloud support. That makes it a great alternative to Google Photos if you can’t give up cloud storage and backup functionality.

Unlike most other gallery apps, Piktures goes with a dark theme by default. It also lets you bookmark specific folders to show above the rest instead of automatically assuming that your “Camera” folder is more important than other folders (which most other apps do). It’s a minor touch, but one that I appreciate.

Piktures has a dedicated “Access” tab that lists all the supported photo and image sources. This includes your on-device storage, Secret Space (a premium option), and any connected external USB drives. However, it also lets you connect to Google Drive, Dropbox, pCloud (US and EU), Yandex Disk, and Nextcloud. Piktures also supports the WebDAV protocol, which lets you connect your device directly to your computer via Piktures Media Server.

Another aspect of Piktures that stands out is the photo editor. While it’s not quite on par with the best photo apps for Android, Piktures’s brightness, contrast, exposure, and saturation tools give you more options than its competition. Add to that the standard crop and rotation tools, plus the ubiquitous filters, and you could conceivably edit all your photos in Piktures if you wanted.

If you’re a cloud storage fiend, Piktures is the Android gallery app to check out. It’s a solid gallery app overall, too, but it’s not as remarkable if you take the cloud storage angle out of the equation.

Pricing

The free version of Piktures has most of the essential features available. However, it shows ads and limits you to a single cloud backup. Piktures Plus (approximately $2.00) is the first paid tier, and it removes ads and unlocks sub-folder browsing. 

But if you want the full experience, Piktures Premium (a one-time purchase of approximately $8.50) gives you unlimited cloud access, automatic backups, and access to an encrypted folder (Secret Space) for private photos and videos.

Google Play Store: Piktures

A+ Gallery

A+ Gallery is a simple but useful gallery app that offers basic cloud sync features and a timeline-focused way to browse and manage your photos.

By default, A+ Gallery breaks your photos down by day, but you can also “zoom out” and group them by month or year. You still have access to a more conventional “Albums” view, as well as a dedicated tab for any connected online libraries (Dropbox and developer AtomicAdd’s own A+ Cloud).

A+ Gallery also has a “Places” view that maps your photos to a world map using their geolocation data. It offers an excellent overview of all the places you’ve traveled and, on a more practical note, gives you a quick way to access photos taken in a particular city (or country).

Beyond the timeline focus and location mapping, A+ Gallery is a minimalistic gallery app. You get a basic photo editor and some tweakable options (such as themes and scroll speeds), but it’s a “what you see is what you get” experience.

That’s neither a good nor a bad thing, of course. If you like the iOS Photos-style timeline view, then A+ Gallery is worth trying out. If not, there are likely more interesting gallery apps to try out.

Pricing

You can download A+ Gallery for free, but the free version occasionally shows annoying full-screen ads. The Premium version is a one-time purchase (approximately $4.60); it removes ads, unlocks extra themes, and adds a Recycle Bin that keeps deleted files in temporary storage.

Google Play Store: A+ Gallery

PhotoMap Gallery

PhotoMap Gallery is one of the more unique gallery apps available for Android. While it has all the basic gallery features you’d expect, PhotoMap focuses on location data and tracking your travels via photos—as the name suggests.

PhotoMap tracks your travels through your photos, collating and combining them according to where you took them. This can be as extravagant as following your travels between cities or as mundane as charting the different places you visit (and take photos in) over a day.

Of course, this isn’t quite as thorough as Google’s Location History feature, but it’s not designed to be. PhotoMap just tracks your life and movements based on the photos you take. It won’t appeal to everyone, but frequent travelers will likely enjoy it. Travelers will also enjoy PhotoMap Gallery’s Diary feature. You can add a note for each calendar day and associate a particular photo (or collage) with that day. 

Unfortunately, PhotoMap Gallery has a somewhat unintuitive and ugly interface. It also lacks any photo editing tools. On the plus side, PhotoMap supports Dropbox and Microsoft OneBox cloud storage, and you can also add network drives via CIFS/SMB or FTP/FTPS. 

PhotoMap Gallery definitely has its appeal, but it’s probably unsuitable as your only gallery app. However, it’s great as an extra app alongside one of the more traditional options. Install it on one of the best tablets for travel, and you’ll have a great way to keep track of and remember your journey.

Pricing

The free version of PhotoMap Gallery shows ads and lacks some advanced features. PhotoMap PRO Gallery costs $3.49; for that, you get an ad-free experience and extras like a fully rotatable 3D world map and additional map views (street, terrain, and OpenStreetMap).

Google Play Store: PhotoMap Gallery | PhotoMap PRO Gallery

1Gallery

1Gallery is a minimalistic gallery app that offers an uncluttered, straightforward way to browse and manage your images. It won’t wow you with a huge feature list, but it does what it needs to do and does it while looking great.

1Gallery’s layout focuses on large margins and a clean look, admittedly at the cost of information density. It’s probably not for everyone, but I really like it. That said, the app does stick to a more conventional grid once you start browsing a folder, so it should still be fine for most users.

Navigating between folders is quite simple, thanks to a quick navigation bar that lets you switch between the default albums view and a collected “pictures” view. The navigation bar also lets you quickly change to a videos-only list, a “favorites” view, and your password-protected Secure Albums. 

Beyond that, however, 1Gallery doesn’t offer all that much in terms of features or options. There’s a basic photo editor and theme support, but that’s about it. Think of 1Gallery as a slightly different take on Google Photos, and you’ll be fine. If it’s features you’re after, then other gallery apps are going to be better for you.

Pricing

1Gallery is available for free, but the free version has some minor feature limitations and shows ads. However, the ads are reasonably unintrusive: I browsed through the 1600+ photos on my phone and only saw one ad right at the top of the folder.

1Gallery Premium is available as a monthly subscription ($2.49) or a one-time lifetime purchase of $4.49. Premium removes ads, adds more themes, and removes limits on albums and encrypted photos/videos.

Google Play Store: 1Gallery

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