How can I copy media files to my phone without adding them to the gallery? I keep my media files (such as music) on my home server. When I add a new album to the home server, and want to copy it to my Android 4.0.4 phone, I use a Samba client (such as AndSMB or X-plore) to copy the files to the phone. So far, so good.

The problem is that the images in subdirectories that I copy over (such as album art) automatically get added to the gallery during the copy, although the root directory I'm copying into has a .nomedia file in it. If I start the copy, then check the Gallery app mid-copy, I see the images start to appear before I run any other apps.

I don't want the images to appear in the gallery.

If I "clear data" for the Media Storage app, then reboot, the gallery is rebuilt without the album art images, so the .nomedia file does seem to be doing its job some of the time.

Is there a way I can copy media files to my phone over a network, without them automatically getting added to the gallery? 

Clearing the data in Media Storage and rebooting the phone works, but is tiresome and has other unwanted side effects like resetting my ringtones.
Is there a way I can copy media files to my phone over a network,
  without them automatically getting added to the gallery?


I don't think it's possible.

After some googling I found this info:

1) Hide Album Art from Gallery

And the provided solution:


  I have all of my photos named folder.jpg/jpeg (I forget which
  extension) and they don't show up in the gallery.


2) [HOWTO] Make gallery remove album covers


  So I did this:
  
  
  Add .nomedia in my music directory, eg. "Music" (only on top directory).
  Rename "Music" directory to "Musicc"
  Run Gallery, exit.
  Rename "Musicc" back to "Music"
  Run gallery and thebthumbnails no longer appear.
  
  
  Also works with other directories that has thumbnails in gallery and
  adding .nomedia later. In my case the thumbs are still displayed.


Also take a look at this post:

How to Exclude Unwanted Images from Phone Gallery on Android


  Gallery Excluder is a dedicated Android application which removes the
  folders that you want to exclude its showing in the default Android
  stock version. This application is quite simple and does the job what
  it says with the application name. So if you have folders which you
  don’t wants to show it on your Gallery then install this application,
  select the folder which you want to show and done.