Mobile cameras need a "junk photo" setting for all those throwaway photos you take to remember where you parked, what's on a menu, QR codes, and all the other random stuff we utilize them for now.
Upvoters58
169 Comments
google sends me little montages of photos from my feed with sentimental music playing. It's funny when one of these junk photos sneaks in. It's like "here's the day you brought your baby home from the hospital... and here's that error message you got in After Effects that you ...
The music makes it that much funnier too.
My friend is an ecologist and his phone keeps making montages of mammal poo
Same here. Makes me think of this funny video from This Hour has 22 Minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBcY29Ezn8w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBcY29Ezn8w)
Junk photo mode should automatically delete the image after 3 days, for pictures that you only need temporarily. It would help keep camera rolls less cluttered with random images that you no longer need but forgot to delete
Someone could probably make a proper app for that.
Wouldn't activating a 'junk photo mode' take the same amount of time as deleting a photo?
Spend one (1) minute each day and it doesn't get out of control. Reading this post and commenting on it took longer than it would take to erase all of the unnecessary photos you took today lol Want to look good/cute and took 20 pictures to only post or share one? Delete them ...
You can have more than one camera app on a phone. I have a second camera app to exclusively take work photos. They're are automatically saved to a cloud drive and not on my phone. I've also had them saved to a different photo folder to keep them seperate before I changes to cl...
That's a good idea. Can you recommend the app?
On my Samsung phone I can easily make a camera shortcut widget that automatically opens it to whatever camera mode I want and then it let's me choose what folder I want it saved to any time I use that specific widget
this would be helpful to keep all the photos of my junk in one place
I use my hidden folder for that
It’s a good idea, for optimal UI experience just have it be something like. Volume up button takes a forever photo and down takes a junk photo. Also have “user preset” and “location estimate” as options for how long a photo lasts in junk. Location Estimate would for example ...
That's great until clueless people start complaining that their phone is deleting their photos
Awesome ideas.
That's actually a great idea. Like an incognito mode for the camera. Pictures taken in this mode could be auto erased in certain amount of time.
Now you're speaking my language.
What's the use of taking pictures of QR codes?
When you need to show the QR code later, like getting into an event or picking up a product.
TIL that people take photos of where they parked, what's on the menu, and qr codes.
TIL people are incapable of deleting photos a short duration after they take them.
You never sent a photo of a menu to someone who wants you to pick something up? Never parked in a huge airport lot that you won't be back to for 5 days? Never needed to show a QR code to get into an event with spotty wifi?
I take photo of my parking spot if it's a big garage with numerous markings and multiple entrances. Knowing my car is in red 3 makes it easier to find once I get my hands on a map.
This seems like an absolutely terrible idea. Have fun not realizing you are taking photos in junk mode and then having all of Timmy’s middle school graduation pics get automatically deleted. I dont see any use for any system that automatically deletes stuff off of your pho...
You could quite easily having you junk photos backed up, or you'd still have 30 days to get them from recycling, but the way I think it should work is you just select photo, video, junk, on the camera app. It always defaults to photo, but a quick swap to take a video is nice a...
The issue is Timmy's graduation pics are in a camera roll with food labels and other junk. I just want the junk to be in its own folder automatically.
My Pixel 10 has a function to free up space where it can pull duplicate photos, blurry photos, screenshots and a couple other categories. It'll display them all as thumbnails for you to browse before deleting them. It's pretty good at identifying garbage.
Google Photos has a feature to clean up your clutter. It let's you remove all your old throwaways.
how would this be easier than just deleting it?
Deleting it isn't hard. It's just that you have to remember to do it every once in a while or you have the junk photos intermixed with family photos and stuff which is annoying.
If you're too lazy to delete the photo, what makes you think you're not too lazy to remember to use the "junk photo" option when taking it?
I have to take a lot of these actually. Someone suggested just using another camera app for junk would solve it so we'll see how that works!
As someone with no social life, my gallery is 100% photos like this
I thought this is why we sit on a toilet to poop.
Ai will probably be used to sort it. But you can do it yourself too and save those items into a junk folder. At least you can with android.
That's my before bed routine. Clean the phone storage. Switch off.
Me doing that is exactly what led to this thought. Kind of lame to have to manage it all by hand. I wish there was a different camera app button that kept all the junk in a temporary file.
google photos tries to auto sort, but it's not very good yet. they keep recommending I delete my birth certificate
This could be a good idea! It could automatically use a lower resolution and delete them automatically after a year or 6 months or however long and then not display them with the rest of your photos so they don't get in the way of the stuff you actually want to see when lookin...
Completely agree! It gets even worse as you get older and need readers (which you never have around). I have a billion pictures of zoomed in product labels lol. Doesn’t even need to happen in the camera, the phone is already scanning your photo content I don’t see why a backg...
Or something like a delete button. It could even have a trash can for an icon.
There could be a second button when you take a picture that saves it as "delete in 24 hours"
I have a weekly reminder on my phone to “clear camera clutter” - I scroll through the photos from that week and delete all the junk, duplicates, and screenshots I don’t need anymore. Handling it weekly makes it a much more manageable task and it only takes a minute or two
Or... put some pictures in a different folder?
Why not just put them in a separate folder
But it's funny to make the most random cutout stickers to send on my friend group chat on Instagram! Like sending my boot sole coming out. Or the pillar saying the parking space number at the mall. Or a shampoo bottle. Completely out of context!
That's actually pretty funny.
My phone has a folder for those, it’s called “recently deleted”
Stuff like that i just delete instantly, then go into the trash if i need them.
Better yet, phones should have an “unsorted” category for photos that haven’t been added to an album yet. macOS has had this for many years. iPhone photos app desperately needs it.
There should be a "temporary photo" option that causes the image to be deleted after a short amount of time.
you shouldn't need to actually take a photo to scan QR codes..?
If the phone is old you might have to
I keep my QR codes so if anyone needs to transfer me money I can just have them scan the code.
It's amazing how much this has changed. If my students want to study something I've written on the board, they just take a picture. Photos used to cost actual money -- maybe a dollar or so apiece!
No cause of implications. If photos can tell me what photos are not parking photos vs those that are not that means someone or some ai or system is going through my data. It would have to be active looking at my photos and image to be able to distinguist the difference. No tha...
I like this idea, but you have to consider the risk of people accidentally taking junk pictures of things/moments they wanted to preserve. There’s multiple ways to minimize the chance, but without a smooth way of implementing it the idea might get more hate than love
Its already there in Samsung phone you can to Gallery -> Clean out.. It will show old documents, QR codes , blurry photos etc etc. I think Google Photos also has something similar
I would say those are the real photos as I go back checking them, the rest are the junk
Remember where you parked photos??? What the
If you ever park in a huge lot where every row is the same for a mile it makes sense. Or airport parking when you’re gone for days.
I don't need them mixing with all the pictures of my cats. have an idea for sorting, but damnit, may need an AI engine, even a small one, maybe a plugin for immich or nextcloud.
I think junk photos need to be the default setting, and can't be change. Everyone should be required to personally select each photo they think is worth saving, instead. This isn't about money. It's just about actually curating what's worth keeping. The internet is awash in ...
What I do is whenever I'm on a long flight or just waiting somewhere like a bus or a train, I go through and delete screenshots and parking spaces and all that garbage
Apple has something like this. Under “utilities” in the Photos app it has “QR codes,” “receipts,” “handwriting,” “illustrations,” etc.
My series of anal wart monitoring photos. Pops up as a memory every now and again
Those were the days.
Haha the other one is photos of instruction leaflets too small to read, so you take a photo and blow it up large. Or is that just an old man thing?
Definitely worth the thought, maybe a "hey, you took this a while ago, is it junk?" Question that the phone asks
Or a "temporary camera". You take a photo and it only stays on your screen until you close it/some period of time passes.
my camera roll is like 80% screenshots of things i was definitely going to look at later and never did
iPhone has a new feature when you take a screenshot to send to someone, it lets you send it without saving to camera roll. Huge fan.
If you’re on apple, you could probably design a shortcut that puts junk photos in a separate folder
You can effectively do this already if you want. I have the Google Keep widget on my homescreen, and there's a camera button. Two clicks = photo just goes into a Keep note. Or you could use a secondary camera app like OpenCamera and have it save photos to a non-standard lo...
Super smart, thanks, I’ll do this.
I feel like we already have it when on iPhone. I take a screenshot it give me an option to “copy and delete”.
Android/Google Photos needs a bunch of features, like keeping private photos out of your camera roll, but allowing you to share them when you want. Or deciding if something is in an album or folder
I'd use it a lot. Yes, this is a very good idea.
For stuff like QR codes, do iPhone camera apps not just give you a link to click on without actually taking a photo? If they don't, aren't there dedicated QR code reader apps that will? And, for the rest, why does it matter? Just don't save those photos? Every photo of whe...
Make it a temporary photo button and immediately bring up the sharing dialog box. Cause half the time you are just taking a photo of label or something to send in a text.
Does nobody else here use Google Photos? It's been helping me declutter my photos for years
They won't make this because then they can't charge your for cloud storage
I like how iOS pulls up a button with the QR code url so you don’t have to actually take a picture.
In this case I mean you have to show the QR code to get into an event or something like pre-paid parking.
I’ve been using my iPhone’s search in photos to find specific things, thanks for the idea to help look for junk photos
I have about 2500 accidental screenshots of my locked screen…. Would those count?
For me, that's just what the photo app is for. I don't take pictures other than for that kind of junk stuff.
That is an awesome idea. Take it as a junk picture and they auto delete after x hours.
That's not a bad idea for an app. A camera app with photos that self-delete in 30 days or whatever you set.
To prove that they are not robot? That can identify "concrete column" or "car" in the photos
Would be good. Occasionally taking a scroll once a month gets most of them though. And filtering to screenshots
AI/ML based categorization could take care of that automatically reasonably well. (Also, do you need to take a photo of that QR code with the built-in camera apps? On my phone I have to use a separate QR code scanner and that doesn't involve taking and storing a photo.)
I just wish Apple would let me keep photos in separate folders and remove from camera roll instead of in both places.
I wish there was a label for random screenshots. 90% of my storage space is taken up by old screenshots that are completely useless to me now
Doesn't Google already do that? Like there's an "archive" mode where all the document and invoice photos I take end up.
I just want to be able to sort my photos into individual albums/galleries and my main gallery be only things I haven't sorted. Instead I have pictures in albums, that all show up together in my main gallery. So if I don't go straight to an album, the things that are sorted int...
That's just the main directory for me. But I mostly only take "junk" pics anyways. For those, like, 4 times a year I'm taking a meaningful photo, I move em to my "Keepers" folder right away.
The Mac app PhotoSort does this: Separates good photos from screenshots, QR codes, memes, pics saved from the internet or messaging apps etc. and also blurry photos. You can then either delete or move them into a separate bucket. [This post](https://medium.com/macoclock/free-u...
Literally the only place where some kind of AI Auto-Feature would genuinely be an improvement over the status quo.
Would you not just make a separate album on your phone?
take a screenshot of camera instead of photo
Google Photos will do this. Recommended bad photos: blurry etc. Apple photos has the utility category which it tags all junk photos for easy deletion.
Google Photos does. Sadly not with Apple iCloud.
Android regularly asks me if I want to automatically delete old screenshots.
If you take a photo in a text message, it doesn't show up in your photo albums. So just text yourself the photos you didn't need to keep long term.
this is bassically 90% of what i use snapchat for. quick low quality and small size photos.
Create a group in WhatsApp or whatever messenger you're using and only invite one friend, after creation you kick that friend out of the group, you now have your own group that you can pin in the messenger and use it for trash pics. When you don't need the pic anymore, delete ...
More like, let us make folders and subfolders like we do on desktop/laptop OSes.
On iOS you can make a shared folder- name it something like ‘Reminders’. (You don’t have to actually share it with anyone). Copy any photos you like into it and then delete the original. Because it’s ‘shared’ it won’t take up any storage on your phone and it can be easily dele...
I speculate this would have already been a thing but it's better to try and get people to pay for cloud storage for a ton of pics they don't want to sift through. I started getting emails from google about paying for a drive subscription because my drive was almost full of aut...
QR codes should also always be their own hyperlink. I hate opening an email with a QR code on my phone and then asking a colleague to pull up the same email so that I can look at it with my camera...
I have an app called sponge that allows me to tinder swipe photos I have on my device.
You just know some tech bro is reading this thinking "that sounds like the perfect job for an AI." Somebody at Android HQ is definitely working on this as an app.
I don't take a picture of QR codes. That might just be you.
I just go through and delete some every so often when I'm in the bathroom. Takes care of the issue.
Apple’s photo app made me a compilation of “tasty bites” and between the photos of actual food it decided to throw in some pictures of my actual poop in a toilet from when I had to send it to my doctor. I guess it thought it was soup.
I'm getting older and small fonts are hard to read so I use my phone and zoom in. I work on IT and I have so many photos of laptop and server serial numbers in my phone that I always forget to delete. This kind of setting would be nice. Mark it as temp or junk and it gets d...
All those photos of my car dashboard when error pops up in a language I did not speak.
And to think, at one point, my photos app was actively trying to get me to delete my important screenshots, while doing absolutely nothing for these larger sources of garbage shots.
I have so many screenshots of games that I only need for a few minutes!
My messages app deleted OTPs after 24 hours automatically. Imagine if they had a temporary camera app. Maybe with a longer period though.
I'd settle for being able to move them into a folder and then they aren't in the main folder anymore.
Honestly, half my camera roll is just parking spots and screenshots I forget to delete. Would be nice if my phone knew which pics I'm never looking at again.
One thing I do is sort by size and get rid of all the junk photos with the most space first.
90% of my camera roll is screenshots of things i needed for 5 minutes, photos of parking spots, and accidental selfies. a "this is temporary" folder would save my life
Honestly, nothing says "modern life" like a heartwarming slideshow interrupted by a blurry pic of your parking spot. Those little digital time capsules are wild.
more photos equals more storage. More megapixels equals more storage. It's in manufacturers best interest to help you take as many trash shots as possible in 50mp size and not help you sort it to make you buy bigger phone storage and cloud storage to fill with trash.
Create a WhatsApp/text group with just yourself and send them there instead. Keeps your camera roll clean and it's easy to clear out the chat history once a month.
The moderators have reflaired this post as a **crazy idea**. While crazy ideas are occasionally allowed as casual thoughts, they should probably be posted in /r/CrazyIdeas. Please review [each flair's requirements](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/requirements) f...
5 years ago yes. I have 60 GB on my phone and have only used half in 3 years.
The annoyance is having photos of labels and parking spaces interspersed with family photos and important moments.
60 gb? Goddamn thats nothing. I have 230 gb of photos on my phone (older iphone pro max) of which, maybe 200 gb is things that are higher quality than I ever need. Really, i want an iphone pro or pro max without a camera bump. Ill take the lower quality camera 99% of the tim...
Or you could delete them when you don't need them anymore..........
Lmao never took a photo to find my car.(Just look around)Never took a menu photo(someone else did that already)I used the QR code reader before. Never needed to take a pic of it(its not saved in photos after).
Google Messages has the ability to automatically purge one-time passwords and authorization codes after 24 hours. This would be similar, except for photos.
Google has that. It will go through and remove clutter. Which seems like screenshots you've taken. That helps me as I have a ton of that crap
I used to take pics of the homework assignment the professor would write on the board in college instead of writing it down. Most others in the class copied me eventually. I like to think I started something :)
Or you can just have Siri pin & remind you where you parked
I'm not the only one to take parking photos!? I knew I wasn't crazy. If it's a good walk away from my destination I have a folder for pins in Google Maps too. I also don't trust my memory with huge shopping centres either, so take photos from where I entered, so I can find t...
My Canon camera has it. You can rate those pictures with one star.
I worked in embedded software and a lot of development involves wires being attached to things in a specific order. I just use google photos to search for 'wires' when I forget something
Instead of getting rid of junk photos specifically I store pictures I actually want in an album on my phone and back it up. Then if I need space I can delete all my photos and not worry For those wondering I back it up to my server running immich, then that gets automatically...
On iOS you could just give it a tag, then set up a smart album.
I just delete them after getting back to my car