Delivery guide
How to deliver photos to clients online
Delivery is the last thing a client experiences and the part they describe to other people, which makes it worth more attention than a folder and a link usually get. The mechanics are simple once decided: export properly, group the set, choose what people can take, and send one address that still works in six months.
Five steps, start to finish
This is the whole job. The decisions in steps three and four are the ones worth thinking about once and then reusing.
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Export at the size you intend to hand over
Decide before exporting whether the client gets full-resolution files, web-sized copies, or both. Exporting once at the highest quality you will offer, and letting the platform generate smaller versions, saves re-exporting an entire wedding later.
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Group the set so it can be navigated
A wedding is not one sequence of eight hundred frames, it is getting ready, ceremony, portraits and reception. Sections let people find the part they want, and make the whole thing feel considered rather than dumped.
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Decide what people can take
Downloads on or off, at what size, and whether the full-resolution set needs a PIN. The common arrangement is web-sized downloads open to anyone with the link, and originals reserved for the person who paid.
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Decide who gets in
An unlisted link is enough for most jobs. A password suits anything sensitive, and an email gate is useful when you want to know who has been in, or want the addresses for a guest list. Choose per job, not once forever.
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Send one link and say what happens next
One address, a sentence on how long it will stay up, and a note that they can share it with family. Most follow-up questions after a delivery are about those two things, so answering them in the first message removes them.
How to send photos to clients for free, without losing quality
The five steps are the same for every job. These are the four questions that come up most often around them, and what actually changes in each case.
Sending photos for free
Free transfer tools move the files and then forget them: WeTransfer takes 3 GB per transfer and the link dies after three days, SwissTransfer goes up to 50 GB for 30 days, a Dropbox Transfer lasts seven days by default. A free gallery plan keeps the set online instead, with less room: Pixieset gives 3 GB, Pic-Time 10 GB that shrinks to 3 GB after six months, picdrop 1 GB across three galleries, Photoglacier 5 GB with no expiry and its branding shown. For a handover that has to stay reachable, the gallery is the better free option.
Sending photos without losing quality
Messaging apps recompress every image they carry, and most email services cap an attachment at 20 to 25 MB, so a full-resolution set never arrives the way it left. Export sRGB JPEGs at quality 90 or higher and hand them over through a gallery, which stores the file byte for byte as you uploaded it. Then check that the download setting is on original rather than a web size, so the client takes exactly the file you exported.
Sending photos as a photographer, not as a friend
A friend sends a folder. A photographer sends one link that opens under their own name, shows the work as a set rather than a file list, brings the client's favourites back to them, and still works when the couple goes looking for it two years later. None of that needs a bigger budget. It needs the delivery to happen in a gallery rather than in a chat thread.
Sending hundreds of photos at once
Eight hundred files in one folder is a wall, not a delivery. Split the job into sections so the client can download the ceremony or the portraits as a single zip instead of the whole set, put a PIN on the full-resolution download, and let the platform carry the bandwidth. A 6 GB wedding sent from your own connection ties up your afternoon. Sent from a gallery, it costs you nothing beyond the upload.
What a client should be able to do
Four things people expect without being told, and notice immediately when they are missing.
Open it without signing up
Every account you ask a client to create is a chance for them to give up and email you instead. A gallery link should open in any browser, on a phone, with nothing to install.
Mark the ones they want
Favourites are how a client tells you which frames matter, whether for an album, a print order, or just to show their mother. Collecting that in the gallery beats a list of filenames in a text message.
Download at a size that suits
Web-sized files for sharing, originals for printing. Handing over only the largest files means a client emails a 40 MB image to a relative and nobody enjoys the result.
Come back to it later
People return to a wedding gallery for years. A link that expires in a week turns into a request for you to re-upload everything, usually at the least convenient moment.
How the common methods compare
The three approaches most photographers actually use, and what each one does to the handover.
| What matters | Transfer link | Cloud drive folder | Client gallery |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it looks | A file list and a download button | A grid of thumbnails and filenames | The photographs, presented, in your branding |
| How long it lasts | Days, then the link is dead | As long as the folder exists and stays shared | As long as you choose to keep it up |
| What the client can do | Download everything, or nothing | Download, and accidentally move or delete files | View, favourite, comment, download what you allow |
| What comes back to you | Whether it was downloaded, sometimes | Very little | Who opened it, what they liked, what they took |
What this looks like in practice
Photoglacier does the delivery half of the job described above. Upload a job, group it into sections, set the download and access rules, and send one link that keeps working. It is built in Austria and runs on servers in Germany, so files stay inside the EU.
- Unlimited galleries and images on every plan, including the free one
- Favourites, ratings and comments, with one-click Lightroom filename export
- Galleries that do not expire, and no per-image fees
Questions people are asking
What is the best way to deliver photos to a client online?
A private gallery link. You upload the finished set, group it, set what people can download, and send one address. The client views everything in the browser, marks favourites and takes the files at the size you allow, with nothing to install and no account to create.
How do I deliver wedding photos?
Build one gallery for the couple, split into getting ready, ceremony, portraits and reception, and send a single link they can pass to family. Keep full-resolution downloads for the couple and offer web-sized files to everyone else. If there is a highlight film, put it in the same gallery so the whole job arrives together.
Should clients be able to download full-resolution files?
Usually yes, for the people who commissioned the work. The common arrangement is originals for the client, web-sized copies for guests and family, and a PIN on the full-resolution set when it matters. What to avoid is offering only the largest files to everybody.
How long should a client gallery stay online?
Long enough that the client stops asking, which in practice is months rather than days. Say at delivery how long you will keep it up. Galleries that vanish after a week generate re-upload requests, and galleries kept forever without a reason accumulate data you have to account for.
Do clients need an account to see their photos?
They should not. A gallery is a web page, so a link is enough. Depending on how you set it up they may enter a password or an email address first, but neither is the same as making them register for a service.
How do I collect client favourites for an album?
Let them mark favourites in the gallery, then export the selected filenames and filter by them in Lightroom. It removes the step where a client sends thirty filenames in a message and you retype them.
Online photo delivery for professional photographers
How to deliver photos to clients online is the question most photographers solve once and then keep for years, usually badly the first time. The pattern that holds up is a single private gallery per job, sections instead of one long scroll, download rules set deliberately rather than by default, and a link that outlives the conversation around it.
Photoglacier is built for that pattern and nothing beyond it. Unlimited galleries and images on every plan, video clips in the same gallery as the stills, favourites and comments that come back to you as a Lightroom filename export, download control per gallery, and no expiry. It is an Austrian company hosting in Germany, so photos and client data stay inside the EU. The free plan starts with 5 GB.
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