Samsung Gallery albums and collages: organise and combine photos

Samsung Gallery offers different types of albums, including albums you add photos to, albums that add photos to themselves, and a Collections tab that automatically sorts your photos, along with a collage feature most Samsung users have never seen.

In this article, we explain the different types of albums in Samsung Gallery and how to create and hide albums. We'll also show you how to create photo collages using the Freeform collage layout option in newer versions of One UI.

Albums, auto albums and collections

There are two ways to organise your photos in Gallery, which are albums and collections. Albums are essentially folders that you can manage yourself. Tap the Create icon on the Albums tab to create a new album. There are four types of albums that you can create (as per the Galaxy S26 user guide for One UI 8.5).

Collections, on the other hand, are created by Gallery for your convenience. Here’s a quick rundown of the different types of albums and collections (paths courtesy of the aforementioned user guide and Samsung India’s support website dated July 2026):

Make an album and fill it

Depending on the version of One UI installed on your phone, some of the names may be slightly different. Look for similar names and options.

For phones that haven’t adopted the newer interface, the steps below include the older route, which we found on Samsung’s Canadian website. Otherwise, they follow Samsung’s India website and the S26’s user guide.

1. 1

   Open the Albums tab

   Launch Gallery and select Albums from the bottom of the screen. On newer versions of the app, you’ll see the Create (+) icon at the top of this tab. Older versions of the app tuck this behind More options (three dots) → Create album.

2. 2

   Choose Album and name it

   Select Album, give it a name and hit Create. (Samsung’s India website suggests adding your images here, but older versions open an empty album instead. You can add images using the Add items option.)

3. 3

   Pick photos, then Copy or Move

   Choose your pictures and tap Done. Gallery will ask whether you want to Copy or Move the images. (Moving them will remove them from their previous albums, while copying them will leave duplicates on your phone, so you’ll need to factor in the additional storage space that takes up.)

4. 4

   Add more photos later

   To move or copy images that are already in an album, navigate to them in Gallery’s main photo grid, long-press on one image to bring up the selection screen and tap any others you want to include. Tap More and choose Copy to album or Move to album as appropriate.

The Create menu only makes albums and groups on a Galaxy S25 Ultra running One UI 9 (as of November 2026). The collage option appears in a different Create menu when photos are selected. See the collage section for more info.

Note that when you move photos to a different album, you need to add that album to Sync with Google if you want it backed up. By default on One UI 9, only the Camera album is synced. Our Samsung Cloud photos guide shows where to add albums to the sync list.

Auto albums for people and pets

Auto albums automatically collect pictures of particular people or pets, according to Samsung’s online user’s guide. Just pick the faces once, and every new picture of them will be added to the album. Create one from Albums → Create → Auto album and choose who it should follow.

Albums are still helpful for sorting photos of a particular event, like a trip or photo shoot. They can help you keep track of your favourite shots and weed out the rest.

If you have lots of albums, you can consolidate them into groups. Samsung’s Canadian page creates one from More options → Create group. Then tap Add albums to fill it.

Let Collections sort photos for you

Collections has five different categories, from Stories to Documents (per the S26 user guide). Tap Edit collections to add/remove categories and change their order.

• Use the Documents category to keep scanned docs and receipts separate from your holiday photos.
• The People category is the easiest way to find all photos of a specific person.

Samsung explains that stories are essentially groups of photos and videos, with the occasional collage or GIF, intended for sharing. Some are created automatically by Gallery, but Samsung’s Canadian page gives the manual route as Stories → More options → Create story. Give it a name, select the photos you want included, and that’s that. With One UI 7, you can fully edit collages in stories (SamMobile), including adding/removing photos.

Hide an album or lock photos away

You can also hide albums in Gallery. On One UI 9 the path is Albums → More options (three dots) → Hide albums (Samsung’s instructions for Australia start with View all, so follow that if your Gallery app looks different). Use the switches next to albums to hide/show them. Anyone with access to your unlocked phone can unhide them though, so this is more of a visual decluttering tool than a privacy feature. If you’d like the opposite effect, to have just a few albums on display, check out Select essential albums (also found via the three-dot menu in the Albums tab), which, according to Gallery’s settings, will show just the albums you pick on the Albums tab.

The Private album is protected by your screen lock, so only you can see what’s inside. Samsung explains how it works on the Galaxy S26 (and the One UI 9 Tips app on a Galaxy S25 Ultra mentions it too, November 2026). Our One UI 8.5 photo features guide has the steps, and the Gallery app guide compares it with Secure Folder.

Make a collage in Gallery

• Collages can be made in Gallery via the Create menu. With One UI 7, Samsung added a freeform collage option, which, according to SamMobile’s changelog for the update, allows you to freely resize and rotate photos and place them wherever you like.
• On One UI 9, the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s Tips app still suggests using Gallery’s collage feature. In fact, when creating a collage, it recommends using the Freeform option.

1. 1

   Select the photos

   Choose your photos: Open Gallery and long-press the first picture you want to include in your collage. Select up to six photos in total, as per Samsung’s instructions.

2. 2

   Tap Create, then Collage

   Create your collage: Select Create at the bottom of the screen and choose Collage. If you’re using an older version of One UI, you may need to find the option labelled Create collage under More options.

3. 3

   Pick a layout or Freeform

   Pick a layout: Browse through the options and choose one you like, or select Freeform, which SamMobile says is the first option in the Collage menu in One UI 7.

4. 4

   Arrange and style it

   Edit your collage: With Freeform, you can drag images around, resize them and rotate them at any angle. The table below has a breakdown of the other options you get with Freeform compared to the pre-designed layouts.

5. 5

   Save and share

   Save or share your collage: When you’re happy with your collage, tap Save. As per Samsung’s India website, your collage will be saved to Gallery. You can also share your collage from here.

It’s always nice to have a dominant image. Make this the biggest image, or place it in the centre if you’re using a Freeform collage. Choose images that have been taken in similar lighting conditions so that they all appear to have been taken on the same day. Remember that once you’ve created a collage it’s saved as a new image, so you may want to do some image editing before you put them together. Our photo editor guide covers the Gallery tools, and the Instagram guide lists the sizes Instagram keeps. Our photo printer guide has compared printers compatible with a Galaxy for putting a collage on paper.

If Shared album or Freeform is missing

• If Shared album won't open, check Auto Blocker. Samsung's US support page says its Maximum restrictions setting blocks shared albums, so turn that off under Security and privacy.
• Shared albums have a storage limit. SamMobile reported in 2023 that all of them together can hold up to 5GB in Samsung Cloud.
• Freeform option not available? Make sure your phone and the Gallery app are up to date. Freeform came with One UI 7, and Samsung notes Gallery’s features can vary depending on software version and device model.
• Don’t see an option to create albums or collages? Check under More options (the button with three dots). On older versions that’s where those options are.