AARP Hearing Center
How Do I Create a Shared Photo Album on My Phone?
Attending a reunion with friends or vacationing with family? Choose one place where everyone can contribute pictures
Create a shared album so friends and family can upload, view and comment on photos from the same trip or event.
Elena Lacey (Getty Images, 5)
Key takeaways
- Shared photo albums let groups contribute photos and videos from a single event or trip.
- Apple plans to add cross-platform sharing and full-resolution photo-sharing uploads.
- Google Photos supports sharing across devices and controls for collaboration and comments.
Got a tech query? AARP members and readers are invited to send me their questions about devices, online safety, social media and navigating today’s technology.
I’m attending my 40th reunion with high school buddies, and we’ll all be taking lots of pictures. Can we create a single repository for all those photos that each of us can add to and comment on?
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
Yours is a great example of wanting to create a shared online photo album: allowing everyone to pool photos around an event or special occasion. Each member of the friend group can contribute not only pictures but also videos and, within certain limits established by the creator of the album, comment on those images.
Sharing travel photography is another common reason to create an album. That’s what my family did for all the pictures we took during a recent 14-day vacation to Japan. Nonetheless, it soon became obvious that my wife and two kids tended to capture the same pictures I did, whether at Tokyo’s famous pedestrian Shibuya Crossing, Mount Fuji or other sites. Indeed, many of the images we shot and then shared were taken from barely different vantage points.
To be kind, folks collectively bring unique perspectives (and skills) as photographers, and pictures that may ultimately be of interest to the larger group are not always captured in the same manner.
Shared photo albums can be open-ended or temporary, with the person who creates the album initially responsible for inviting others to upload their own images and weigh in.
You might set up a temporary shared album when, say, remodeling your bathroom or kitchen. You can grant prospective contractors temporary access to an album.
Changes coming to Apple shared albums
Apple has kept shared photo albums within the confines of its own iCloud ecosystem, meaning the only people who could contribute photos to an iCloud Shared Photo Library were those with an iPhone, iPad, Mac or other Apple gear.
That’s about to change. When the iOS 27 software update launches in the fall, Apple will add cross-contribution capabilities that claim to make it easy for Android and Windows PC users to upload pictures to a shared album on Apple’s platform. That’s a big deal, since you cannot assume that all your school buddies in the example above are using Apple devices. Non-Apple users will still have to authenticate via iCloud.com.
Google Photos, which I’ll address further down, lets anyone with a Google Account, whether on iOS, Android, PC, Windows or Mac, contribute photos and videos to a shared album.
Apple will be implementing another important change. iCloud Shared Albums will start offering full-resolution sharing, rather than compressed or reduced-resolution images, for images currently housed in a shared library. It comes at a cost, however, since newly added full-resolution content will start to count against the album creator’s iCloud storage limits. That hasn’t been the case up to now.
Photos and videos in an existing shared album will remain at their original resolution and format, and won’t take up iCloud storage. If an owner contributes a photo that is already in their iCloud Photo Library, it won’t be double-counted against their storage allotment either.
Also new: Shared albums can be set to expire after 30 days, which is useful if you need an album for only a short-term project. That batch of photos won’t affect iCloud storage either.
Create an iCloud Shared Album
Apple has a current limit of 5,000 photos and videos for a shared album, no matter who contributed those photos, but the only limit going forward for a high-resolution shared album will be your iCloud storage. While 5,000 seems like a lot, if you’re anything like my family and use the camera with reckless abandon, you may exhaust that limit. During a recent family vacation in Japan, we collectively snapped nearly 15,000 images, which meant creating three separate shared albums.
Here are the instructions for creating an iCloud Shared Album, with the understanding that some steps may be slightly altered once iOS 27 is officially released.
Start by signing in to your Apple account.
In Settings on an iPhone, tap your Name | iCloud | Photos and make sure Shared Albums is toggled on.
Next, open the Photos app and tap Collections | Albums | Shared and tap the + in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Or tap Collections and scroll down to Shared Albums and then tap the +. Under New Shared Album, fill in a Shared Album name and tap Add Photos to select the pictures and videos you want to include.
Tap Add Participants to invite people to join. If you tap the +, you can choose folks from your Contacts. Or enter the phone number or email associated with the Apple accounts of potential invitees. Tap Create to continue.
The people you’ve invited will receive an email asking them to Subscribe.
As the creator of a shared album, you can toggle Participants Can Add Photos and Notifications switches, depending on your preferences.
To remove a person from a shared album, tap the three horizontal dots| X Participant(s) | the participant name | Remove Subscriber.
An owner can also toggle a Public Website switch, which lets anyone with the link view the shared album on iCloud.com.
Tap the checkmark at the upper right when you are done.
Share Pictures Straight From the Camera
Apple lets you create a single Shared Library with up to five other people, with each person able to add, edit or delete content. You can share photos straight from your iPhone or iPad camera.
Tap Settings | Apps | Photos | Shared Library | Sharing from Camera. You can choose to Share Automatically when Bluetooth is turned on, and the device detects you’re near other album participants. Or you can Share Manually. A separate Share When At Home setting lets you automatically share photos and videos from the camera even when no one else is around. You can choose options within Settings to view photos in your Personal Library, Shared Library or both.
Sharing Google Photos
Shared albums on Google Photos are available across multiple platforms, including Android, iPhone, iPad and computers.
The following instructions are for an Android device. Tap Photos and select the pictures and videos you want to include in the album. To choose a single photo or video, open that image, then tap Add to + | Album | New album.
Or choose pictures and videos in bulk by tapping and holding the ones you want to select. A checkmark will appear next to the images you’ve selected. Tap Add to album + | New album.
Choose an album title and optional description, and tap the checkmark at the upper-left-hand corner of the screen to indicate that you are done creating the album. You can always add more images later.
Now comes the sharing part. Tap the Share icon at the bottom of the screen; it resembles a left-pointing triangle. If a family member or friend in your Contacts has a Google account, you can share the album with them directly or search for their email address or phone number.
If people aren’t among your Contacts, click Create Link to send a link that lets them view the album.
You have to take additional steps to control what the people you’ve shared the album with can see or do.
Open the album and tap the More (three dots) button in the upper right corner of the display. Tap Sharing | Sharing settings and toggle switches on or off to Collaborate, which lets the people you invite add pics, and Comments & likes, which lets participants weigh in with, well, comments and likes. You can also tap the Share photo locations switch to enable people with album privileges to see where the photos were taken.
A separate Link-sharing switch lets anyone with the link see the photos and people in the album. You can also provide access to the album by displaying a QR code.
When you invite someone to the album via email, they’ll have the opportunity to tap the View album button to participate. The email also includes buttons for people who don’t already have the Google Photos app to download it in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
Keep in mind that when Collaborate is turned on, anyone with the Shared Album link can continue adding photos, so remember to turn it off if you no longer wish this.
You can similarly turn off the Comments and Likes option for everyone.
Album owners can remove someone from the shared album as follows: Open the shared album and tap More | Sharing | More (three dots) next to the name of the person | Remove person. Make sure to turn off link sharing to prevent the person from possibly seeing the album.
Bonus tip: Save pictures and videos you want to keep in case a shared Google Photos album is shut down.
As the owner of a Google Photos shared album, if you leave the album and stop sharing, all photos and comments from your participants will be removed, and those folks will no longer be able to view the album. There is a loophole. Once someone has already copied or downloaded a photo or video that has been shared, those copies or downloads will not be deleted. If you’re part of a shared album but aren’t the owner and suspect it may be deleted, download your favorite pictures and videos that aren’t already in your personal library before they disappear.
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
You Might Also Like
How Do I Take a Screenshot on My Smartphone?
Whatever is on your screen can be instantly and easily captured
How to Share Your Location With Your Family
Keeping track of everyone can ease your mind, but don’t let it strain relationships
Can I Stop Advertisers From Tracking Me Online?
Pay attention to these privacy settings in your web browser