Where Are Android Camera Photos Stored?
Where Android keeps camera photos and screenshots in shared storage, and why the phone looks empty over USB.
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Android camera photos live in DCIM/Camera inside shared storage, which a PC sees as the phone DCIM folder over USB. Screenshots go elsewhere: Pictures/Screenshots on most phones. App specific shots (Facebook, Lightroom) get their own DCIM subfolders beside Camera.
The path prefix varies with how you look. File managers show /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera, a PC over MTP shows This PC\Phone\Internal storage\DCIM\Camera, and SD card setups move the tree under the card. Same photos, three addresses.
Where Android stores this, by platform
/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera
The 0 means the primary user on multi user devices. Older Samsung phones used DCIM/Screenshots for screenshots instead of Pictures. Scoped storage never moved these folders: they stay browsable without root.
Frequently asked questions
My phone shows an empty DCIM folder when plugged into a PC. Why?
Set the USB mode to File transfer (it defaults to charging only). Then unlock the phone and wait a few seconds: MTP builds the file listing lazily, and an empty DCIM usually means the mode or the lock screen, not missing photos.
Do all camera apps save to DCIM/Camera?
No. Third party camera apps can pick their own subfolder under DCIM (Open Camera uses Camera by default but allows changes). Stock camera apps from Samsung, Google and Xiaomi all use DCIM/Camera, which is the path worth memorizing.
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