Evening on the couch
Send this to my parents. That to my friend. Change my mind — that one was better — tap again, the previous photo comes back. In most gallery apps that's three or four screens of selecting, copying, sharing, screen-back, undo, re-share. By the time I'm done I've lost track of what's gone where, and my own backup folder has half a dozen near-duplicates because every "share" silently copied the file somewhere new.
What goes wrong without it
- Marking-before-sharing. I have to put a star or a tag on a photo before I can do anything with it. By the time I'm reviewing a hundred photos, my star list is a mess.
- Copy-and-share. Sharing means copying the file into a folder I'm sharing. The original stays in my camera roll. Now I have two of every photo I shared.
- Lost track. I scroll through my gallery a week later and have no idea which photos went to my parents, which to my friend, which to nobody.
- No takebacks. I shared the wrong photo and there's no clean "unshare" — I have to go to the destination folder and delete it manually.
How SyncGallery does it
1. Rules are named destinations
You set up a sync rule once per destination — your parents' shared cloud folder, your friend's shared cloud folder, your colleague archive — and give each one a name and an icon you choose. Each rule points at a real cloud destination on Google Drive or OneDrive (a local-backup destination is on the roadmap). The name and icon become a button on the preview screen.
2. The preview screen has your buttons
Open any photo in full-screen preview. Your rule buttons appear as a row of icons overlaid on the screen, in slots you place yourself (the layout is configurable per orientation). Tap "Parents" — the photo is queued and sent. Tap "Friends" — sent there too. Tap "Parents" a second time — the photo is removed from the parents' destination.
3. File-level rules toggle on tap; sync runs immediately
For rules that sync individual files (the rule covers the photos you've assigned to it), the button is fully interactive: tap to add, tap again to remove, and the change syncs immediately — not on the next scheduled run.
4. Folder-level rules show status, no toggling
If a rule is set up to sync an entire folder (everything in that folder always goes to the destination), the button still appears, but it's a status indicator only — you can't tap to add or remove individual files. The icon's appearance tells you whether the photo is part of the rule's cloud destination. Useful at a glance: "is this photo backed up to my OneDrive folder yet?"
5. Status, not guesswork
Each button shows the sync state of its rule for the current photo: queued, syncing, done. The same status is visible from the grid (multi-select view) and inside the rule's own filter view ("show me everything that's been routed to Parents"). No more wondering whether something made it through.
6. The same mechanism in the grid
You're not limited to one-photo-at-a-time. Open the grid, multi-select photos, and the same destinations are available as menu options. Assignments toggle the same way and persist in the same place — the preview screen and the grid stay consistent because they're both reading from one underlying assignment store.
7. Inviting someone to one of your destinations
For shared cloud destinations, SyncGallery generates an invite link of the form https://m-apps.net/syncgallery/invite?... that carries the provider, the cloud share URL, the folder name, and who shared it. The recipient opens the link, taps to install or open SyncGallery, and a sync rule is set up on their device pointing at the same shared folder. They start receiving the photos you route there.
Your rules become buttons. Tap to send. Tap again to take back.
After the routing
Once a photo is assigned to a rule, it lives in two places — your camera roll and the destination — and stays in sync with both as long as the rule is active. Remove it from the rule (for file-level rules with reversible actions), the destination copy goes away too. Your own gallery is the source of truth; the destinations are projections of what you decided to route there.
Set up your first destination button
Install SyncGallery, create a rule pointing at a shared folder, give it a name and icon — and it's ready on your preview screen.
Get it on Google PlayFrequently asked questions
What kinds of destinations can a button point at?
Any sync rule you've created. Today that means a Google Drive or OneDrive folder — your own, or a folder someone has shared with you. A local-backup destination is on the roadmap. Each rule you create is automatically available as a button on the preview screen and as a menu option in the grid.
How many buttons can I have on the preview screen?
As many as fit. The buttons live in customizable grid slots that you place yourself — you can arrange them in either portrait or landscape orientation. Each rule occupies one slot; if you have more rules than slots, only the ones you've placed are shown.
What does a tap actually do — copy, link, share-link?
It runs the rule's action. For most cloud rules that means uploading the file to the destination folder (a copy lands there). The rule defines what happens, not the tap — there's no separate "share link" floating around, and no extra dialog. The button is shorthand for "run this rule, on this photo, now."
If I tap the button twice, does the cloud copy actually go away?
For file-level rules with reversible actions, yes — the second tap removes the assignment, and the destination copy is deleted on the next sync (which runs immediately). For folder-level rules, you can't toggle from the preview button; the photo is part of the destination as long as the file is in the source folder.
How do I share a destination with someone else?
From the destination's wizard, SyncGallery generates an invite link of the form https://m-apps.net/syncgallery/invite?.... Send the link to the recipient — when they open it, SyncGallery sets up a matching sync rule on their device pointing at the same shared folder. They start receiving the photos you route there.
Screenshots and labels in this page reflect the SyncGallery app at the time of writing. The exact wording of UI elements may evolve in future versions.