Join an event and add your photos

There's nothing to install and no form to fill in. Point your camera at the code, tap the link that pops up, and you're on the event page in your browser.

Joining

1. 01

   Scan the code, or tap the link

   Your phone's normal camera app reads the QR code and offers a link; tap it. If the host sent you a link instead, just open it. Any modern phone browser works, on iPhone or Android.

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2. 02

   Read the welcome

   The welcome is a door, standing open on the album with its cover's photos showing through. Under it are the event's name, who's hosting, and how many photos are already inside. Tap Continue and you walk through the door into the album. Where the album stays out of sight until you're through, the door is shut: no photos show, and the host may not be named.

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3. 03

   Enter the password, if the event has one

   Some events add a password from the invitation. The door stays shut until you enter it, and everything else waits behind it.

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4. 04

   Confirm your email, if the host asks

   Some hosts want a confirmed address before the album opens. Enter your email, and a one-time code by email is the whole sign-in. Your name comes after: if your account already has one, that's the name on your photos, and if it doesn't, the next screen asks for it once. See why an event asks for your email.

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5. 05

   Choose how to join, if you're new here

   How do you want to join? Tap Continue as guest for just your name, the fastest way in. Create account or Log in instead if you want your photos to follow you to your own dashboard too.

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6. 06

   Say what to call you

   What should we call you? Your name goes on the photos you add, so the host knows who to thank. You can change it anytime. If the host isn't asking everyone to confirm an email, you'll also see an optional email field: skip it, or add it so you can come back to this album anytime, with every photo you add. Nothing is sent to it up front, and only you can see it until you confirm it later. Where the host asks for an email first, this comes after the code, and only if your account has no name yet.

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7. 07

   Wait at the door, if the host lets each guest in

   Some hosts let each new guest in themselves. Once you've confirmed your email, you wait at the door, which stands ajar with nothing of the album behind it yet, and says the host will let you in. It opens right there, by itself, the moment they do. Keep the link: it opens the album whenever you come back. While you wait, Choose what you'll add lets you pick your photos now. They go in the moment you're let in and nothing is sent before then. Your choice waits on your phone, so a reload or a closed tab keeps it, and the album sends it when you come back.

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8. 08

   Add your first photo

   The last screen asks for one, right there, so you are not hunting for a button once you are in. On most events you can tap Skip for now instead; on an event whose host asked everyone to add a photo before the album opens, the photo is the way in.

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Already signed in at an event where the host lets each guest in? Ask to join comes in place of the email step: one tap, and you're waiting at the door too. At an album kept to an invite list, an address that isn't on it meets a shut door instead, where it can ask the host to let it in, or tap Use a different email.

The welcome, Ask to join and the wait are the door's own page. Every other step (the password, your email, how to join, your name, your first photo) rises over it as a sheet, with the album blurred behind it, or the shut door where the album stays out of sight. The album never shows before the door you're meant to meet first. There is no way around it: the album is what the name and the photo are for.

Adding more

Once you're in, Add photos is on every screen. It opens the same two choices the door gave you, Take a photo or Choose from your album, and what you pick comes back for a look before anything is sent. There's no caption box.

Each one appears at the top of the gallery as it goes, with a thin progress bar. They upload one at a time: venue wifi is fickle, and one file at a time finishes where a burst of twenty stalls. A green check marks each one as it lands. You can keep adding as the event goes on, and you can come back days later with more.

If the host reviews uploads first, you'll see a note saying so, and what you send goes to them before it goes in the album. The round button beside Add photos counts how many of yours are waiting, and it opens Your uploads, where each one says Developing, In the album, or Not approved. Only you see that list. Until the host lets them in, the album shows what waits as a sheet of squares, yours lit; a photo the host approves appears in the album for everyone.

If one doesn't finish

One failure never stops the others. Once the rest are done, a sheet opens with one button that retries everything at once, and under it, one line per file with the reason and its own Retry. There's no cancel button for a file in flight. If you picked the wrong one, let it finish, then delete it yourself; see find your uploads, and the events you added to. The usual causes are in an upload won't finish.

What happens to your photos

They upload at full quality, exactly as they are on your phone. Location data is stripped before anything leaves your phone; see photo metadata and location data. What you can send, and how big, is in what you can upload. Browsing, saving single photos, and the reel are in browse the album.