Collect your guests' photos and videos

Goal

The Guest photos section of an event opens a drop: your guests send their photos and videos from a simple link, in original quality and without creating an account. You find everything in a gallery, hide or delete what is not appropriate, and can block an unwelcome guest. If you wish, your guests also see each other's photos on the link page, after your approval if you prefer. The drop opens on the day of the event and everything is deleted for good seven days later: remember to download your files before then.

Steps

1. Open your event, then the Guest photos section, and click Turn on the drop.
2. Copy the link to share and send it to your guests (message, group chat, card). Anyone with this link can send files; each guest opens it in their own language. The QR code next to it can be projected or printed as is.
3. For the tables, pick a format under Printable table card — Table tent (an A4 sheet folded in half that stands on its own) or A6 card — then click Download the card: a PDF in your invitation's colours, with the QR code, the event name and the upload deadline.
4. On the day of the event, a Share my photos button also appears on each guest's RSVP page and on the invitation's public page. From their RSVP page, the guest reaches the drop already identified.
5. Set the number of uploads per guest (20 by default): it counts per phone and per person, changing name does not reset it.
6. If your guests share the venue's Wi-Fi, turn on Venue on a shared Wi-Fi: they then all have the same connection address, which the per-connection limit must not block.
7. On the day and during the following week, follow the uploads: number of files, of guests, and space used on the drop's storage.
8. In the Gallery, filter by type (photos, videos) or by guest, then open a file to see it full size. From this viewer: Hide (the file stays with you but leaves what guests see and the archive), Delete (erased for good) or Block its author.
9. A blocked guest can no longer send anything to this drop; their files are hidden. You can Unblock them from the list of guests at the bottom of the page: their files stay hidden, to show one by one.
10. For your guests to see each other's photos, turn on Gallery visible to guests: it appears below the upload, on the link page. Each guest chooses, when identifying, to show their name there; otherwise their photos are signed “Anonymous”.
11. To choose what appears there, turn on Approve before publishing: every new file waits for your approval. A banner shows how many are waiting; Show files to approve isolates them, the approve button of a thumbnail (or Approve in the viewer) publishes one, Approve all publishes them all.
12. To get everything back in original quality, click Download the archive next to the gallery title: a zip file with one folder per guest, the files under their original name and an index.csv file (who sent what, when, with their contact). Hidden files are left out. Keep the page open while it saves.
13. For a single file, open it in the viewer and click Download.

Frequently asked questions

Do the card and QR code change if I create a new link? Yes: the old QR code stops working. Download and print the card again after creating the new link.

Does the venue's Wi-Fi block uploads? Not if you turn on Venue on a shared Wi-Fi: without it, every guest on the same Wi-Fi counts as a single connection, and the per-connection anti-abuse limit may block them. The per-guest upload limit counts per phone: it stays the same whatever the network. An upload cut off by a poor connection resumes where it stopped.

Which formats are accepted? Photos in JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF (iPhone), WebP and AVIF, up to 50 MB each; videos in MP4, MOV (iPhone) and WebM, up to 2 GB each. Files are received as they are, without compression.

Videos are very heavy, is that a problem? A few minutes of 4K video easily weighs 1 GB: uploading it over 4G takes time. Suggest your guests send them over Wi-Fi, or the next day from home: the drop stays open for seven days. Above 100 MB, the upload goes in chunks and resumes after a cut. The drop holds 20 GB in total.

A guest asks me to remove a photo, what do I do? Open it in the gallery and click Delete: it is erased for good. By turning on the drop, you are responsible for moderating it; the guest can also contact privacy@etkivent.io.

The link has spread too widely, what can I do? Click New link: the previous one stops working right away, QR code and card included. Then share the new one with your guests. Files already received do not change.

Why do some photos have no preview? Photos in HEIC format (those of many iPhones) have no thumbnail in the gallery: open them with Open the original. Videos play directly in the viewer.

What happens after the seven days? The drop closes on the seventh day after the event at 11:59 pm (Paris time), then everything is deleted for good within the following hours: files, thumbnails, guests' names and contacts. Only the number of files received remains. You get a reminder by notification five and six days after the event, unless you already downloaded the archive since the last upload (turn on the app's notifications to receive them). If you delete the event, its photos are deleted right away. If you move its date earlier, you still get at least 48 hours to download the archive, and you are told so.

My archive weighs several tens of GB, is that a problem? No. On a computer, with Chrome or Edge, you choose where to save it and it is written there as it goes, whatever its size. With other browsers (Firefox, Safari, phones), it is split into parts of 1 GB at most, to save one by one. Remember to download it before the deletion, seven days after the event.

What if the drop is full? Each drop has 20 GB. When it is full, guests see a clear message and you receive a notification: delete files to free up space.

Can guests see each other's photos? Only if you turn on Gallery visible to guests, and only the visible photos (not those you hid), approved if approval is on. They see a preview of each photo, stripped of its technical information (date, device, GPS location): the original stays reserved for you (and your event planner, if any).

What about videos? They are not shown to guests: we cannot yet remove their GPS location. You find them in your gallery.

What happens to waiting files if I turn approval off? Everything that was waiting is published in the guest gallery, except the files you hid.