[Updated] One UI 8 could bring a new way to hide private images

Update: The Private Album feature discussed in this story may not officially be available in One UI 8, as we have discovered that the feature has to be manually enabled from the Gallery app's hidden Labs menu. The Labs menu offers additional functionality that is not meant for the end user.

Original story follows:

As we reported earlier, Samsung is planning to open the One UI 8 Beta Program as soon as this month. Some of its features have leaked in the past few days, and you can check them out here. And it appears that Samsung is planning to bring a new way to let you hide private images and videos on Galaxy phones.

As spotted by X user @DalgleishGX, the stock Gallery app in One UI 8 appears to have a new feature called Private Album. It lets you safely store your private images and videos within the Gallery app, which makes it easier to use compared to Secure Folder, which creates a completely new copy of the stock Gallery app, taking up more space.

It could be built using Android's Private Space API that was introduced last year with Android 15. If it is, the feature will be pretty secure. It is the same API that Samsung will likely switch to for Secure Folder in One UI 8.0. Currently, Secure Folder is built on top of Android's Work Profile feature.

People have been requesting Samsung to bring a simple App Lock feature that asks for biometrics or a password/PIN before opening a locked app. However, the company has not built such a feature. It was rumored that it could be introduced with One UI 7.0, but that didn't happen.

Some Galaxy fans say they are more interested in the App Lock feature than the Private Album feature. But it doesn't hurt to have both, especially when many other Android brands are offering such features on their phones and tablets.