Two switches shape what guests can add, and neither is tied to a date. You decide when the album is finished, and how big a single upload is allowed to be.
- Dashboard
- Your event
- Settings
- What guests can add
Turn off uploads
Flip Accepting uploads off; it saves the moment you do, and the What guests can add row then reads "Paused. Guests can still look." The upload button disappears for guests, who see The host has closed uploads. You can still browse the album. Everything else keeps working: viewing, the photo viewer, downloads, the highlight reel, and making clips from it (a guest just can't add a clip to the album while uploads are closed). Flip it back on any time.
Your own Add photos keeps working while uploads are closed; the switch is for guests.
Closing uploads also stands down the other switch. If you asked everyone to add a photo before the album opens, a guest arriving after you close uploads is let straight in: nobody is ever held at a step they couldn't pass. The same is true when the album is out of space.
Cap the file size
Max size per upload limits how large any single guest file can be. It sits under Videos and applies once videos are on: its smallest step is 25 MB, so it caps nothing an ordinary photo reaches, and while videos are off it rests as one quiet line. Pick a preset from No limit (the universal 10 GB ceiling) down to 25 MB. A guest whose file is over the cap sees a message naming the limit and nothing uploads.
The cap is for guests only; your own uploads ignore it. It's a way to stop one enthusiastic guest's forty-minute video from eating your storage, not a way to stop uploads (use the switch above for that). The floor is 25 MB so a cap can never accidentally reject every ordinary photo.
An end date closes nothing
An event is never scheduled to close: the date you enter, and the end date you can add for a weekend or a trip, say when it happens and nothing else, so uploads stay open until you turn them off. On the free plan, an event nobody touches for about 24 months is warned by email, then moved to Deleted, where it can be restored for 30 days. Signing in is enough to keep it active. Deleting the event yourself is the only other way it ends. See how long your media is kept.
When to close
Not the night of. Give it a few days; the best photos often arrive when people get home and sort their camera rolls. Close it once the trickle stops; the reel stays one tap from the album's cover, with every late arrival in it.