How to Prevent Files from Showing Up in Media Players in Android

When you open the music player on your Android phone you will often see unwanted audio files like audiobooks, call recordings, voice recordings, custom ringtones, etc., showing up in the list. The same thing happens to the Gallery app where it shows all your screenshots and all kind of picture files that you don’t want to appear. In this tutorial we will show you how you can prevent files from being indexed by your media player.

Hide audio files from music players

The solution is pretty simple and straightforward. In fact, you don’t have to use special apps, change file extensions, etc. All you have to do is create a simple file.

In this case we will prevent all audiobooks from showing up in the Music app.

Before proceeding any further, I assume that you store the songs and audiobooks in separate folders. This helps you better manage the files and hide the audiobooks.

To start, launch the file explorer and navigate to the folder containing all your audiobooks. In my case I’m using Solid Explorer, and my audiobooks are stored in a folder called “Books.”

Once you are in the target folder, create a new file by tapping on the “Add” icon. The procedure may differ slightly depending on what file explorer you are using. Also, be sure to create a new “File” and not a “Folder.”

Now, name the new file as “.nomedia” and tap on the “OK” button.

The above action will create a new empty file with the specified name. That’s all there is to do. Restart your music player, and you should see that all the audiobooks no longer show up in the list. In some cases you might need to get the music player to do a rescan.

Additionally, you can also use the same method to prevent your gallery app from indexing unwanted images. One thing to keep in mind when following this approach is that you are only suggesting the music player and gallery apps respect the “.nomedia” file and avoid indexing any media files in that specific folder.

The good thing is most popular, as well as any decent, media apps will respect this file. However, there are still some apps that don’t respect this file and index the media files as they wish. In those situations it is better to look for another good music player or gallery app.

Do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences about using the above method to prevent unwanted files from showing up in media players.

Image credit: The Preiser Project