Not everyone will install an app, and a grandparent shouldn't have to in order to see photographs of their grandchildren. A share link solves that: a web address that opens the album in any browser, with no account and nothing to install.
How it works#
You turn on sharing for an album and get a link. Anyone with the link can open it and look at the album. That's the whole mechanism, and its simplicity is both the point and the thing to be careful about.
It works on every plan, including free.
Treat the link like a key#
Anyone holding it can open the album — there's no password, and it doesn't know who's using it. A link forwarded to someone you didn't intend works exactly as well for them.
That's the trade for "no account required", and it's why the controls below exist.
What you control#
- Downloads. Off by default. You choose whether people can save the photos rather than just look at them.
- Expiry. Optional. You can give a link a date after which it stops working.
- Turning it off. An album's link, at any time, immediately: anyone with the old link gets nothing. A link to one photo or to a selection has no off switch of its own yet, so give it an expiry when you make it. Hiding a photo from everyone, or deleting it, takes it off every link.
Links don't expire on their own#
This is the one most people get wrong. A share link stays active until you either give it an expiry date or switch it off. It doesn't quietly lapse after a week.
So a link you sent for a birthday two years ago still opens that album today unless you did something about it. If you share albums often, it's worth occasionally reviewing which are still live.
If a link is for one occasion, give it an expiry when you create it — it's much easier than remembering to come back.
Hidden photos are never included#
An album link never includes a photo you've hidden, so you don't have to re-check an album's contents before sharing it. A photo hidden from everyone is never on any link. A photo hidden from a circle can be shared on its own link only by the person who added it, and the share window says who it's hidden from first. Anyone else sees why it can't be shared instead of an error.
See Hide a photo from a circle.
Showing an album on a television#
Related, and often what someone actually wants: an album that's shared with a link can be put on any TV with a browser using a short code. The code lasts 15 minutes and stops working the moment you turn the album's sharing off.
See Watch on a TV.
Sharing a single photo or video#
You can also share one photo or video rather than a whole album, with the same kind of link and the same download control. Sharing a single photo shares that photo, not the rest of the album it came from.
Before you share, you choose how long the link works: always, 1 day, 7 days or 30 days. You can then copy the link yourself, or open your device's share menu.
Sharing a selection of photos#
Select photos in a grid and choose Share link, and you get one link holding exactly those photos. They can come from different albums; the person opening it sees them as one set.
What goes in is decided by the same permission as the share button on a single photo. Your own photos always qualify, wherever they are. A photo somebody else uploaded qualifies when the album it sits in allows sharing: an album you own, a hub album where members may share, or an album shared into a circle that permits it. Photos from an album with sharing switched off are left out, and the sheet says how many before you create anything, rather than afterwards.
Saving is off by default, for a single photo and for a selection alike. Handing someone full-size copies is a bigger step than showing them, so you turn it on deliberately.
The rules are checked every time, not just once#
If sharing is later switched off for an album, its photos vanish from links you already sent. The link isn't a snapshot of what you were allowed to share that day; it asks again each time someone opens it. A link with nothing left to show stops working rather than quietly falling back to a single photo.