Sharing photos or albums

Official help: Share photos and videos

Albums and Shared albums

Where do I find them?

• Google Photos has an Albums area at https://photos.google.com/albums.
  On mobile devices the albums are under the Library tab.
  When an album is shared you can "Hide from Albums" (via 3-dots).
  To show it again in Albums you must go to that album in the "Sharing" tab.

• Shared albums appear also in https://photos.google.com/sharing (Sharing tab in menu)
  On mobile devices the "Sharing" tab is a text balloon in the left upper corner.
  Albums shared with you can be "Show in Albums"
  Unfortunately things you share and things shared with you are mixed up.

How to share an album

• Share an existing album

  • Open an album and click the "Share" icon. You get 4 options:

    • Invite to album
      You can only invite people having a Google account. These people can also share further, but you can see who they shared with.

    • Create link
      You create a link which you can send to anyone in a mail or message. Also users without Google account can see the album when they get the link. You loose control on who may get the link.
      You can also create a link in the album Options (under 3-dots).

    • Facebook or Twitter
      You can share a link. Not elaborated here.

• Create a shared album

  • You can select photos > click the + icon (Add to) > Shared album > New shared album
    That is similar to create a normal album, but you must click "Share" instead of "Create"

  • You immediately get the usual sharing options and are forced to use one of them. If you do not want to share immediately you can select "Create link". You can as well create a normal album , and share later.

Album "Options"

Options are found under 3-dots > Options

• • "Automatically add photos" of people or pets or so called "Live albums". Photos of the selected people/pets are automatically added to the album.

  • "Link sharing" to create a link when not yet created, or to copy an existing link

  • "Collaborate" allows anyone with a Google account to add photos. Selected by default. Names do appear as an overlay on all photos in the overview as soon as the album contains photos uploaded from more than one account.

  • "Comments & likes" allows anyone to add comments or likes. Selected by default.

Sharing selected photos "in a conversation"

When you select photos and hit the "Share" icon, you get the usual options, but the behavior is different from sharing albums, but works also only for users with a Google account.

• Instead of "Invite to album" it says "Send in Google Photos"

• The photos are automatically added to the "Sharing" tab of the receiver as a king of "Chat" session.

• You can send to more than one person: it will create a group chat.

Partner sharing

You can share your complete library with a single partner. That partner can also share with you only.

• All photos in the library will be shown as "Name's photos".

• Photos can be systematically added to the own library by activating the "Save" option. Photos added that way are not synced with the partner's library: when the original owner deletes them they will not be deleted from the partner's library. That means that this is also a kind of backup.

• "Archived" photos are NOT included when you share your library with a partner.