I found Samsung Gallery's hidden menu; now I can't imagine managing photos without it

As a long-term Samsung user, I feel almost embarrassed that I didn't notice some crucial, hidden menus.

One of the menus was the Intelligent Wi-Fi menu. The second one is the Gallery Labs menu .

Gallery Labs is like an extension to the regular Gallery app; you will find an array of experimental features that haven't been released publicly.

As someone who adores Samsung's Gallery app for photo management, I immediately needed to enable this for my primary Samsung Galaxy phone .

Since I started using this collection of Gallery experimental features, I have some new favorite utility options I can't give up.

Gallery Labs needs to be enabled manually

It's essentially the same as going into developer mode

First, you'll need to find the Gallery Labs hidden menu.

To get Gallery Labs on your phone. Open the Gallery app and go to Settings(tap the Hamburger buttonat the bottom of the app).

From there, find About Gallery. Tapping this will show you a Terms and Conditions section.

Look for the version number, then tap it several times. You will see a countdown to enable Gallery Labs, then a final message: "Gallery Labs is enabled."

It took me about 10 taps to enable it. It also requires precision about where you tap —you must tap the version number, or it won't work.

After you've enabled it, return to the previous section where you tapped About Gallery, and you'll find the Gallery Labs menu at the bottom.

In this section, you should see the On toggleat the top, along with a list of features and toggles for each One UI version.

These are experimental features, so they might not always work as expected; if they don't, you can toggle off Gallery Labs using the On toggleat the top.

One of my current favorite Gallery features is Private Albums , released in One UI 8.5, and it is also a Gallery Labs feature.

So you should find some listed that will eventually make it to the Gallery app.

I almost wish I'd known about this menu earlier, since I could have used Private Albums before the official release, as I use Private Albums almost every week.

It's one of those features that takes the anxiety away, since I usually have one album filled with images from generative AI, and some of those results look horrifying.

So, instead of deleting them immediately, I wanted to create a collection for my view only.

Now, I feel silly that I wasn't using Private Albums sooner, since it was available even earlier in Gallery Labs.

The Gallery Lab features that matter most to me

It brought quality-of-life changes to how I use Samsung Gallery

I'd be lying if I said every Gallery Labs feature has proved useful for me.

I am still relatively new to using this set of experimental tools, but so far I have some favorites.

The first is the Save as PDF toggle.

I tend to take image copies of paper forms to check or view them later, as I am too lazy to scan them to my computer.

Some of these forms are receipts. As a freelancer, I keep my receipts to either send proof of purchase with a form or for tax purposes.

But it's a bit unprofessional to upload images from my phone, so I take extra steps to upload the image and then convert it to a PDF.

Now I can do it directly. It's not perfect because I want images to look professional, and I rely heavily on my Samsung's camera to scan them.

Luckily, it still works out.

The second feature I found very helpful is Restore files in Private album.

If you accidentally or intentionally delete something, you can tap this option, verify your ID through biometrics or passcode, and it will restore it.

For me, I usually only have a handful of images, like between 10 and 20, for my eyes only, so using this option will usually be between 1 and 3, which is a manageable amount.

I don't normally have to do this, but I like that the option is there, since I tend to change my mind about photos, even if I have a string of similar images. Sometimes a few hours later, I change my mind about the ones I want to keep.

Apparently, there's a similar option in Gallery Labs for phones running One UI 9.0 that can fix another issue with private albums created in Samsung's Secure Folder.

If you were using Secure Folder Gallery before the One UI 8.5 update, your saved private albums in Secure Folder could disappear. One of the cited fixes is to use "Private Album Recovery" in Gallery Labs .

Lastly, the final feature in Gallery Labs that I've been using a lot is AI Zoom.

I liked using this for some of my older albums that I kept on my device for over seven years.

The quality of those images doesn't match my recent ones.

AI Zoom gives these images more clarity when you pin-to-zoom; essentially, it makes them sharper without permanently altering the image.

I also find this helpful with low-quality screenshots; I can use AI Zoom to read the text without overworking my eyes.

Other honorable mentions include (ones that I liked but are considered more niche for my needs):

• File browser and previewing ZIP files

• Show EXIF in details

• Timeline in album

• Mirror screen mode in viewer

• Collections: optional categories (My tags)

All in all, I am excited for Gallery Labs to be a perma-stay on my phone.

It gives me more control over my current Gallery experience by letting me toggle on and off features I don't plan to use for photo management, while previewing upcoming options.

Plus, it should continuously update to add more options. So I advise checking it out if you want more granular control over the Gallery app.

Leaving it on doesn't hurt, but not knowing about it is what I actually regret.

Samsung Gallery is still a treasure trove

I am 100% in the camp that I will always pick the Samsung Gallery app as my default photo management app over Google Photos .

I prefer to use Google Photos' lesser-known sibling, the Gallery by Google app , as a lightweight alternative on my Pixel.

Still, nothing can replace editing in the Samsung Gallery app; I use Photo Assist's AI eraser for a quick glow-up, or apply background blur to make a busy-looking image look less distracting.

By all means, I am a very amateur editor, which is why I stick to simple, easy-to-access editing and photo management tools available on my phone.