Third-party gallery for Pixel Camera

July 26, 2026 · View on GitHub

Tap the photo thumbnail in Pixel Camera and it opens your gallery instead of demanding Google Photos.

It names no particular app. The thumbnail just fires a normal Android "view this image" request, so whichever gallery you've installed picks it up — the same way opening a photo from your file manager does. Tested with Immich; anything that registers as an image or video viewer should work.

If you have Google Photos disabled, stock Pixel Camera refuses to open the thumbnail at all and nags you to re-enable it. This fixes that.

Verified end to end on a stock, unrooted Pixel 10 Pro XL (Android 17, Pixel Camera 10.4.117.936816638.14).

Read this first

This does not replace your Pixel Camera. It installs a second copy alongside it.

Pixel Camera is baked into the system partition and signed by Google. A modified copy can't be installed over it on an unrooted phone — Android rejects the signature and there's no way around that without root. So the patched build installs under its own name (com.google.android.GoogleCamera.morphe) and shows up as a second camera icon. Your original stays exactly where it is, untouched.

That has consequences worth knowing before you start:

The lock-screen and power-button-double-press shortcuts still open the stock camera. Those are wired to the system camera app, which this isn't. You launch the patched one from its icon.
It won't update itself. Google Play only updates the real package. When Pixel Camera updates, you redo this (about four minutes — see Keeping it up to date).
Add Me runs slower. It can't use the Tensor accelerator in a renamed build, so a second patch makes it fall back to CPU models. That patch is on by default; you don't have to do anything. Details below.
Everything else works, including all lenses, Night Sight, Portrait, video and RAW.

Install with Morphe Manager

Phone only, no computer needed.

1. Install Morphe Manager

Grab the APK from MorpheApp/morphe-manager releases and install it. You'll have to allow install from unknown sources.

2. Add two patch sources

In Morphe Manager, add both of these as patch sources:

https://github.com/Gamer92000/pixelcamera-patches
https://github.com/MorpheApp/morphe-patches

You need the second one too — the official collection — because it has the "Change package name" patch, and without that the patched app cannot be installed at all.

3. Pick Pixel Camera, then select exactly these patches

From pixelcamera-patches:

Patch
Use third-party gallery	on by default — this is the feature
Run Add Me without the EdgeTPU	on by default — leave it on, or the app crashes the moment you tap Add Me
Use third-party gallery on lock screen	off by default — read the warning below before enabling

The first two are already selected for you. You only need to touch this screen if you want the lock-screen patch.

From morphe-patches:

Patch
Change package name	required — without it the patched app cannot be installed

⚠️ You must also open its settings

Tap the gear icon next to "Change package name" and turn both switches on. They are off by default:

Update permissions → on

Update providers → on

Skip this and patching succeeds, then the install fails at the very end with:
INSTALL_FAILED_DUPLICATE_PERMISSION: Package com.google.android.GoogleCamera.morphe
attempting to redeclare permission
com.google.android.GoogleCamera.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
already owned by com.google.android.GoogleCamera
That is 1.2 GB of patching wasted, so set them before you start. Pixel Camera declares a custom permission and content providers that collide with the copy already on your phone; these two options rename them.

Leave everything else off.

4. Patch and install

Let it run, then install the result. Pixel Camera is a 1.2 GB app, so this takes a while and needs a few GB free.

You'll end up with two camera icons. The patched one is the new one.

Using it

Take a photo, tap the thumbnail. If you have more than one gallery installed, Android shows its usual "Open with" chooser — pick yours and hit Always to make it the default from then on.

That's it. There are no settings and nothing to configure.

If you later re-enable Google Photos it becomes just another option in that chooser rather than the forced one.

About the patches

Add Me

Add Me normally runs on the Tensor chip's AI accelerator, which is locked to Google-signed apps. A renamed copy gets refused, and the app aborts rather than coping — so tapping Add Me kills it.

Pixel Camera happens to ship a second, non-accelerated set of Add Me models. The patch makes it load those instead. Add Me then works normally, just slower.

Lock screen — read before enabling

When you shoot from the lock screen, Pixel Camera normally hands the photo to a viewer under a rule that says show only what was just taken, nothing else.

Third-party galleries don't implement that rule. Turn this patch on and your gallery may display your entire photo library above the lock screen, without unlocking. It's off by default for that reason. Only enable it if that's genuinely fine with you.

If something goes wrong

What you see	What it means
The app closes when you tap Add Me	Run Add Me without the EdgeTPU got turned off. It is on by default; re-patch with it enabled.
`INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE`	You skipped Change package name. Re-patch with it enabled.
`INSTALL_FAILED_DUPLICATE_PERMISSION`	`updatePermissions` was off. Turn it on and re-patch.
`INSTALL_FAILED_CONFLICTING_PROVIDER`	`updateProviders` was off. Turn it on and re-patch.
Thumbnail opens the wrong app	Android remembered a default. Long-press that app → App info → Open by default → clear, then tap the thumbnail again and pick properly.
Thumbnail does nothing, photo bounces back	Nothing installed can open that file type. Normal for RAW/DNG with no DNG viewer. The camera keeps working.
Patching fails partway	Usually free space. Pixel Camera is 1.2 GB and needs a few GB headroom to unpack, patch and re-sign.

Keeping it up to date

Google Play updates your stock Pixel Camera but not the patched copy, so it gradually falls behind. To catch up, patch again in Morphe Manager with the same selections.

The patches are pinned to the Pixel Camera version they were verified against, so if Manager says the app version isn't compatible, that's the patches needing an update rather than anything being broken. Open an issue.

If you're checking a new version yourself:

python tools/verify_fingerprints.py base.apk

RESULT: PASS means go ahead. Anything else means Google moved the code and the patches need updating — see BUILDING.md.

Known limitations

Lock-screen and power-button camera shortcuts open the stock app, not this one.
No automatic updates.
Add Me is slower than stock.
Some Google-server-backed extras may not work, because Google's services only serve configuration to apps signed by Google. Photo and video capture, all lenses, Night Sight, Portrait, Panorama, Long Exposure and RAW were all verified working.
Only tested on a Pixel 10 Pro XL. Other Pixels will probably work; nobody has checked.

Uninstalling

Long-press the patched camera icon and uninstall it, like any app. Your original Pixel Camera is unaffected — it was never modified.

Doing it from a PC instead

If Morphe Manager can't finish on-device — it has to merge, patch, re-sign and install a 1.2 GB app — do the same thing on a computer. You need adb, Java 21+ and a few GB free.

# tools
curl -fL -o morphe-desktop-all.jar \
  https://github.com/MorpheApp/morphe-desktop/releases/download/v1.12.0/morphe-desktop-1.12.0-all.jar
curl -fL -o patches-1.37.0.mpp \
  https://github.com/MorpheApp/morphe-patches/releases/download/v1.37.0/patches-1.37.0.mpp
# plus patches-1.0.0.mpp from this repo's releases

Copy Pixel Camera off your own phone rather than downloading it from anywhere:

.\tools\Pull-PixelCamera.ps1 -OutputDirectory .\work\stock

Zip the parts into one .apkm, since Pixel Camera ships as a base app plus feature modules:

python - <<'EOF'
import os, zipfile
src, out = 'work/stock', 'work/PixelCamera.apkm'
with zipfile.ZipFile(out, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_STORED, allowZip64=True) as z:
    for p in sorted(f for f in os.listdir(src) if f.endswith('.apk')):
        z.write(os.path.join(src, p), p)
EOF

Patch and install:

java -jar morphe-desktop-all.jar patch \
    --patches=./patches-1.0.0.mpp \
      -e "Use third-party gallery" \
      -e "Run Add Me without the EdgeTPU" \
    --patches=./patches-1.37.0.mpp \
      -O updatePermissions=true -O updateProviders=true \
      -e "Change package name" \
    --exclusive \
    --out=./work/PixelCamera-patched.apk \
    ./work/PixelCamera.apkm

adb install -r work/PixelCamera-patched.apk

This is the route that's actually been verified end to end.

More detail


BUILDING.md	Building the patch bundle from source
FINDINGS.md	How the app was reverse-engineered, with the evidence
COMPATIBILITY.md	Which versions are verified, and the test results
TESTING.md	The test procedure

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

This project contains no Google code and no part of Pixel Camera. It's a description of changes, applied by you, on your own machine, to a copy of an app already on your own phone.