How to Unlock the Secret Menu in Samsung Gallery App

Samsung’s Gallery app has a hidden menu called Gallery Labs, where experimental features live before they ship properly. It is unlocked the same way developer options are on Android: by tapping a version number repeatedly.

Two honest caveats before the steps. Samsung does not officially document Labs, so what is inside it — and whether it appears at all — varies by device, region and One UI version. And it is experimental by definition: features appear, change and disappear between updates.

How to enable Gallery Labs

1. Open the Gallery app
2. Tap the menu (three lines), then Settings
3. Tap About Gallery
4. Tap the version number repeatedly — around 7 to 10 times
5. A message confirms Labs is enabled
6. Go back to Settings; Gallery Labs now appears at the bottom

If nothing happens after a dozen taps, it is not there on your build. Labs has been present on and off since roughly One UI 2.1, but it is not guaranteed on every device or carrier variant, and Samsung has never promised it would be.

What you might find inside

The contents change between versions. Features documented by Samsung community users on recent One UI releases include:

• AI Zoom — uses AI to improve image quality when zooming into small photos, so the zoomed result looks clearer
• Private Album — move photos and videos into a hidden storage area from the menu
• Presentation and Mirroring modes — switch between them when viewing photos on an external display
• Search tab — a dedicated search entry in the bottom bar
• Day-cluster merging — groups all photos taken in one day under a single thumbnail

Treat that as a sample, not a checklist. Your Labs menu may show some, none, or entirely different entries.

Version context: One UI 8, 8.5 and 9

This matters because most guides to this menu are pinned to versions that are now several releases old, and the contents moved.

Samsung began the official rollout of One UI 9, built on Android 17, on 16 September 2026, starting with the Galaxy S26 series after debuting on the Z Fold8 and Z Flip8. One UI 8.5 rolled out from May 2026. If you are reading instructions written against One UI 4.1 or 5.0, they describe a Gallery app two generations behind the current one.

Check yours under Settings → About phone → Software information before assuming a feature is missing rather than moved.

Is it safe to use?

Reasonably, with a clear sense of what “experimental” means here.

These are display and organisation features inside a first-party Samsung app, not system modifications, root, or third-party code. Nothing here voids a warranty or requires unlocking a bootloader.

The real risks are mundane and worth naming:

• Features vanish on update. A Labs feature you come to depend on can disappear in the next One UI release with no announcement, because it was never a shipped feature.
• Private Album is not a security product. Hiding photos from the gallery view is organisational, not encryption. For actual protection, use Secure Folder, which is a real security feature with its own authentication.
• Back up before reorganising. Anything that moves photos between albums deserves a backup first, for the same reason any bulk file operation does.

Turning it off

Open Gallery Labs and toggle individual features off. To remove the menu entirely, clearing the Gallery app’s data resets it — along with the app’s other local settings, so do that deliberately rather than casually.

If Labs is not on your device

Much of what people go into Labs looking for exists in the shipped app already:

• Hiding photos properly → Secure Folder
• Finding photos → Gallery search already indexes people, places and objects
• Cleaning up duplicates → Gallery’s own storage tools

Labs is worth a look out of curiosity. It is not worth chasing across firmware versions.

Sources

• Samsung Newsroom — One UI 9 rollout (Android 17 base, 16 September 2026 start, device order)
• Samsung Newsroom — One UI 8.5 rollout
• Samsung — One UI

The Gallery Labs steps and feature list above are drawn from Samsung Members community documentation rather than official Samsung product documentation, because Samsung does not publish a reference for this menu. Expect variation by device and build.

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