Where Does Google Messages App Save Downloads

Hardin Aporged · Sunday, December 5, 2021

on my galaxy s8, when i am in the google app and i hit "download image" it downloads the image but i cannot for the life of me figure out how to find the image. it's not visible in the google photos or samsung gallery apps and looking through the file structure i cannot find it anywhere. i get a notification from download manager telling me that it is downloaded, and i know it's being saved because if i download a second copy it appends a -1 to the filename but i cannot figure out how to access the images whatsoever. where are my images?

04-25-2018 03:39 PM
Should be directly in the "downloads" app.

04-25-2018 04:16 PM
Welcome to the forums. If the suggestion by @Itsa_Me_Mario doesn't work, you should have a file explore app, and I would try under download or pictures. It should go to one of those places.

04-25-2018 06:04 PM
Welcome to the forums. Sometimes files downloaded from Chrome or the Google app are saved out of order or with the wrong date. It has happened to me a couple of times.

You can try a couple of things. First scroll down the download folder in your gallery and see if you can find it. Most likely it will be buried in there. Also, try to open it from the notification right after you download it and check its name/date.

04-25-2018 06:22 PM
I am having the same issue! It is NOT in downloads, photos or DCIM. I've tried searching, rescanning and using a 3rd party file manager. When I open the notification it does not give me the date or file location...

07-19-2018 04:03 PM
I'm with this error. I tried to find the pics with a File Manager with root but I don't know where is the directory to folder Documents. Probably is on any folder in system... Well, if you find tell me pls

07-28-2018 10:23 PM
I'm having the same issue trying to find where images are saved after long press and download a picture from Google search app.

08-15-2018 06:16 AM
this been driving me crazy as well. When you click the notification that it has been downloaded it'll open the file no problem but to find the file itself is impossible

08-15-2018 09:30 PM
I am having the same issue as well. Has anyone found a fix for it?

08-20-2018 04:10 PM
I've talked about this elsewhere as well, but when you download an image using the Google app, it gets saved to a system directory called /document -- this means the image can only be accessed again using the Google app. You have to download the image using the Google search website on Chrome, which will save the image to the /Download directory (which is user-accessible). I have no idea why Google does it this way.

08-21-2018 07:26 PM
Originally Posted by B. Diddy

I've talked about this elsewhere as well, but when you download an image using the Google app, it gets saved to a system directory called /document -- this means the image can only be accessed again using the Google app. You have to download the image using the Google search website on Chrome, which will save the image to the /Download directory (which is user-accessible). I have no idea why Google does it this way.

where exactly would this folder be? I cant seem to find it.

08-21-2018 10:10 PM
If you're talking about the /Download directory, it's on the main user directory. So if you use any file manager app and go to the highest level directory that you can access (I hesitate to call it the "root" directory because I don't want people to think it has anything to do with rooting a phone), you should see it there.

08-21-2018 11:20 PM
Originally Posted by B. Diddy

If you're talking about the /Download directory, it's on the main user directory. So if you use any file manager app and go to the highest level directory that you can access (I hesitate to call it the "root" directory because I don't want people to think it has anything to do with rooting a phone), you should see it there.

I was talking about the Google Document folder in the post I quoted I know where the download folder is it even shows up in my gallery but the photos downloaded from Google don't show up anywhere

08-22-2018 12:54 AM
The /document directory is a protected system directory. You won't be able to access it unless the phone is rooted. Since I've never rooted a device, I'm not exactly sure what the full pathname for /document is -- it might just be that.

08-22-2018 11:03 AM
Is there an app that I can look into the folder with without root? some how with the Google App?

08-23-2018 12:55 AM
No, that's the problem with these kinds of protected directories -- you can't use conventional file managers to look in them. If you downloaded the image using the Google app, then open the Google app again, tap the Menu button at the lower right, then Saved -- I think you'll find them there.

08-26-2018 01:24 AM
I was running into this same issue where a downloaded image from the Google app was not visible in any of my gallery apps or file browsers. For some reason, the Google App on my phone didn't have Storage permission. After I granted the Google app Storage permission, then pictures I downloaded through the Google App showed up in my galleries and file browsers. Anything I saved prior to this still didn't appear, but any new pictures I saved have shown up as expected. Hope this helps some of you, this was driving me nuts!

08-28-2018 11:46 AM
Originally Posted by RocThrower

I was running into this same issue where a downloaded image from the Google app was not visible in any of my gallery apps or file browsers. For some reason, the Google App on my phone didn't have Storage permission. After I granted the Google app Storage permission, then pictures I downloaded through the Google App showed up in my galleries and file browsers. Anything I saved prior to this still didn't appear, but any new pictures I saved have shown up as expected. Hope this helps some of you, this was driving me nuts!

Wait. What!? You're absolutely right, it worked. Thanks for that tip!

08-28-2018 11:53 AM
Originally Posted by RocThrower

I was running into this same issue where a downloaded image from the Google app was not visible in any of my gallery apps or file browsers. For some reason, the Google App on my phone didn't have Storage permission. After I granted the Google app Storage permission, then pictures I downloaded through the Google App showed up in my galleries and file browsers. Anything I saved prior to this still didn't appear, but any new pictures I saved have shown up as expected. Hope this helps some of you, this was driving me nuts!

BRILLIANT. Welcome to Android Central, and I salute you! I need to find the other threads about this and explain your solution.

08-28-2018 12:19 PM
Originally Posted by RocThrower

I was running into this same issue where a downloaded image from the Google app was not visible in any of my gallery apps or file browsers. For some reason, the Google App on my phone didn't have Storage permission. After I granted the Google app Storage permission, then pictures I downloaded through the Google App showed up in my galleries and file browsers. Anything I saved prior to this still didn't appear, but any new pictures I saved have shown up as expected. Hope this helps some of you, this was driving me nuts!

im so happy and disappointed in myself for not figuring this out on my own 😆

08-28-2018 10:50 PM
Originally Posted by justnivek

im so happy and disappointed in myself for not figuring this out on my own ��

I felt exactly the same way!

08-29-2018 12:51 AM
I just made a friggin account just to salute you. I was ready to run the damn phone over with my car.
But now, Problem fixed!

08-29-2018 10:55 PM
Had the same problem... Go into your Apps manager and check the app permissions for Google, the storage permission is turned off for some reason... Once you enable it, any images you download from that point on should show up in a downloads folder in your gallery.

09-16-2018 11:44 PM
Originally Posted by RocThrower

I was running into this same issue where a downloaded image from the Google app was not visible in any of my gallery apps or file browsers. For some reason, the Google App on my phone didn't have Storage permission. After I granted the Google app Storage permission, then pictures I downloaded through the Google App showed up in my galleries and file browsers. Anything I saved prior to this still didn't appear, but any new pictures I saved have shown up as expected. Hope this helps some of you, this was driving me nuts!

Bro you are a hero

10-02-2018 12:36 PM
I was having this issue as well. Turns out that like RocThrower my Google app did not have storage permissions enabled. Before that some of my downloads on my Pixel 2 XL were being saved here:

data/data/com.android.providers.download/cache

10-10-2018 03:39 AM