How to exclude folders with pics appearing in the photo gallery

Hey there,

Welcome to our Microsoft community.

I'm so sorry to hear that you're experiencing problems with private photos often appearing inexplicably, I completely understand how you feel and on some occasions this can be really embarrassing. We can try unchecking the folders within OneDrive that you don't want to show in OneDrive, this will be sorted by source.

1. Select Me  
2. Open Settings
3. Select Camera upload
4. Choose Organise by source
5. Check or uncheck any folders you included or excluded.
6. Select Categorize in sub-folders to upload within the Pictures folder instead (e.g. Screenshots).

For your information: Seeing pictures that are not my photos in OneDrive - Microsoft Support

You can follow the steps above, uncheck the images source you don't want to show and observe it for a while to see if it works. If you have any questions, you can reply to this thread anytime and I will continue to help you.

If there is anything unclear, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Have a nice day and stay safe!

Best regards,

Olivia | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

there is no such "Camera upload" option. "Camera backup" only, but it's for turning on the backing up photos taken by camera only. No where you can exclude photos from gallery.

Hi,

this has been an issue that's been reported and requested over and over and over again. And clearly Olivia, as so many MS Support Reps just copy/pasted a standard answer without either understanding or caring what the problem is. Sometimes I do think these MS forums are just utterly useless and many people just post random answers hoping for the best.

Again to reiterate. The problem is as follows:

ALL Photos are being shown, no matter whether that's Android, Windows or anywhere else. As the original poster, I have the same problem. Not only are ALL photos being shown in my photo gallery, but also in the "memory" bit, where it shows what happened the same day the year(s) before. To give you an example:

In my general (!) OneDrive folders I have, images, graphics and art for my website projects, my private hobbies, my computer games (i.e. Screenshots), but I also do have personal photos. For some reason, OneDrive decides to skim through ALL my image files, whether relevant or not and show these either in the Photo app or in my memory section.

So when OneDrive shows me - for example - photos from the years before, it shows me icons and image files from my projects I saved last year, it also shows me a screenshot of a game and it shows family pictures.

I thought I am being intelligent by leaving ACTUAL photos in the "Pictures" folder and moving EVERYTHING ELSE into a different folder, i.e. arts and graphics into a dedicated folder OUTSIDE the "Pictures" folder which I assumed is going to be indexed for this. All my other documents like website projects, art projects, etc.pp are all in different folders, definitely not in the "pictures" folder. Yet OneDrive still decides to show me that on this day 2 years ago, I saved an empty pixel GIF which I needed for a website, as well as a black square. Right next to the photos of my babies birth.

It is beyond me, why Microsoft decides that certain folders have to be skimmed for images and why users don't get a say in this. Either give users the option and integrate a button that says "include this folder in photo app/memory feature" or at least give the general option to ONLY skim through photos in the "pictures" folder unless being told otherwise.

So dear Olivia, the problem is not that we don't know how to use OneDrive. The problem is that there is no feature despite people asking for it in numerous posts and support requests here and in many other forums and websites.

I do have an Android phone and I don't use the camera upload function at all (this also being one of the reasons!!!) but the problem - as I mentioned before - exists on all platforms. The "camera upload" function has nothing to do with it.

Oh and before someone suggests I could "hide the for you" the feature. That's completely missing the point. It's not about hiding it, it's about making it work properly.

It also wouldn't solve the problem that still all items would be shown in the gallery even though they shouldn't. Because "hiding the for you section" won't solve that problem either.

Just in case someone decides to come up with that "weird" solution...

No "Camera upload" setting exists in that location. I don't even have the "Camera backup" setting another user mentions. Why are the US's so inconsistent? Or is this even a cogent answer the problem.

To be extra clear: I need a way to select which folder within OneDrive are shown in Gallery in OneDrive Photos. I would like to have only the files within c:/.../.../OneDrive/Pictures/ shown. Instead it shows every image in OneDrive, which includes icons, clipart, etc.

If this isn't resolved I will cancel my OneDrive account and move back to using Google.