Marvin is a Features Author for Android Police. His media career began as an editorial assistant at a now-defunct print publication. He has since transitioned to digital media as an editor, attended technology events in over 10 countries, and earned his master's degree in journalism.
He enjoys film photography, outdoor running, and alternative coffee brewing during his leisure time.
Google Photos has always been my go-to gallery app. It sucked me in because of its unlimited photo backup. I stayed even after that deal ended because I already had thousands of photos in Google's cloud. I fell for a classic bait-and-switch.
Since then, I've been looking for a suitable replacement for its gallery function. I may be committed to Google's online backups, but I can just as easily download another gallery app to browse through my photos.
I recently felt the urgency to switch to a fully offline gallery app. Google Photos was becoming increasingly slow at displaying folders and has been pushing too many AI features. I just want to view my photos the moment I open the app.
I stumbled upon Memoria, a fully offline open source gallery app. It took me a while to find it because it's only on GitHub, and Google Play has several apps with the same name.
After spending some time with Memoria, it became my default gallery app on Android.
Getting away from Google Photos
It's a tedious breakup
Google Photos' Achilles' heel is its overreliance on the cloud. Even when I access local folders in Photos, the app still processes much of its information online, which leads to longer load times.
In return, Google Photos automatically sorts and indexes all my photos and videos. It categorizes people by their faces and locations by Google Maps pins. When I upload or edit a media file, it synchronizes across all my logged-in devices.
This means I can upload photos and videos from my phone, then use the search function on my desktop PC or tablet to find what I need.
This cross-platform functionality makes Google Photos hard to leave; at the same time, feeding the platform so much data has slowed things down and added bloat on my end.
Memoria exists to loosen up Google's grip and give me more control over my photos. It doesn't connect to the internet and uses local AI to scan my locally saved files.
Memoria works only with files stored locally on your device. The sole Android permission it requires is Photos and Videos. From there, you can choose which folders it'll index. The folders you pick become part of Memoria's headline feature: search using natural language.
Memoria prioritizes search speed and simplicity
No cloud access to slow it down
After giving Memoria permission to access my locally stored files, I had to let the app scan my entire storage to index my media. The more files I had, the longer it would take.
In my case, I had less than a thousand photos to index. It didn't take long to complete, but it warmed up my phone significantly. Memoria's developer seems aware of this, so they include a temperature reading in the app's settings.
Run the initial indexing while plugged in to a charger. The first cycle drains power like crazy. If you have thousands of photos to index, let the app run overnight to prevent battery throttling from too much multitasking.
After Memoria gathered all the data it needed, I was good to go. Searching using natural language is straightforward: I use the same search terms I'd use on Google Photos to find what I'm looking for.
Queries like "blue sneakers" or "coffee on a table" bring up results within seconds. Memoria's reliance on its local index and detachment from cloud services make it blazingly fast at rummaging through my photos.
Memoria automatically parses text inside screenshots and documents, so those get brought up in search results. This is invaluable when I need to quickly recall a phone number or receipt number buried deep in one of my folders.
Here's the fun part: I can search using a photo instead of typing it out. If I want to see photos of orange cats, I pick the cat photo I have on hand, and Memoria matches it with all the related photos on my phone.
Memoria still needs work
Some features are lacking
Smart Albums is a promising experimental feature on Memoria. When I create a new album within the app and name it, the album gathers all the photos connected to that keyword.
For example, if my new album is named "cameras," it would add every locally saved photo of a camera to that group.
As of writing, Smart Albums is hit or miss at best. When I named an album "sneakers," Memoria captured almost every sneaker photo on my phone. For other album names like "cars" or "books," they came back blank, even though I was sure I had car and book photos on my phone.
When you have a new local folder on your phone, include it in Memoria's Manage Folders under settings. Excluding new folders leaves their photos out of the index.
Memoria's confidence slider is another oddity. You find it under search filters, and you can adjust it from zero to 100%. The developer explains that it controls the minimum match confidence for search results.
Each time I tried the slider, I got varied results. The lowest setting was inaccurate, while the highest setting was too strict. I left it at 50%, which gave the most balanced output. I saw no need to adjust the slider any further.
Besides that, the remaining search filters are bare. They only let me choose a date range and specific folders to check. For an app that prides itself on its search functionality, it's a bit lackluster. I'm sure the developer is actively improving this.
Google Photos has only one purpose now
Now that Memoria is my default gallery app, I've relegated Google Photos to an online backup app. As long as I let it run in the background, Photos keeps uploading my photos and videos when I'm connected to Wi-Fi.
I plan to eliminate Photos from my workflow. I would replace its cloud service with a NAS or another network to rid myself of Google's grip. I could then keep Memoria as my one-and-only photos app.
Memoria has more features to come based on its roadmap, including native in-app actions (move, copy, and delete) and manually adding photos to an album. The future is bright for the app and its users.