NEW FEATURE: Private Sharing - Join our DGRIN Webinar Tues. March 3rd (details below)

leftquark

Today we deliver a better, more secure way for you to share your photos with only the people you want. Since privacy has always been such an important part of the SmugMug philosophy, we felt that our next update should help you feel better knowing exactly who gets to see your photos.

Private Sharing allows you, the account owner, to share galleries securely with people you trust... and only them. It’s a new level of privacy that secures your gallery so its viewed only by a specific set of people that you choose. Nobody else can see it, even if they try the link. The people you’ve selected also get a new, easy way to see the photos you’ve shared with them.

Private Sharing is perfect for sharing the lives of your growing kids, for high-profile celebrity portrait artists or for anyone who wants to stay in control of their photos.

This new feature is available on all New SmugMug accounts Power and up, so let’s explore how it works.


Private Sharing: Let Only Invited Guests Through the Door

Because privacy is paramount at SmugMug and we want you to be super clear on how it works, we’ve split privacy into two new sections:

1. Visibility: If your content shows while browsing your site
   • Public
   • Unlisted
   • Private
2. Access: Who can actually click and see what’s inside
   • Anyone
   • Anyone with a Link
   • People with Password
   • People I Choose (New!)

Private Sharing is a new, fourth level in Access: “Only People I Choose.” The people you name here will receive a one-time invite link that can never be shared with anyone else.


The Experience: Private Sharing in Action

To illustrate how it works, here’s what happens when you’ve got your own SmugMug account and want to share personal photos with someone you trust:

• Visit the gallery and pick, “Only People I Choose” at the gallery Access level. Type in your friend’s email address in the box that appears below. We’ll send them an email with a link in it.
• Your friend clicks the link they receive and redeems your invite. They’ll log in if they already have a SmugMug subscription, otherwise we’ll ask them to create a free Guest Account of their own.
• They’ll see a “Shared With Me” page where they can browse all the galleries that have been shared with them.

Tip: Your invitee can create their Guest Account using a different email address than the one you used to invite them. They don’t need to match.

As long as they’re logged in to their own accounts, your friends can browse the shared galleries to their heart’s content, all from one “Shared with Me” page. If they're not logged in, or if someone else tries to view that same gallery, they won't be able to open it.

We’ve got extensive new help pages to show you how it works, so be sure to read through them as you start sharing galleries with those you trust.


Free Guest Accounts, Beefier Contacts List, and More Ways to Help Your Fans

Private Sharing is more than just an invite: There’s the all-new Guest Accounts mentioned above (for friends you choose) and a more powerful way of managing Contacts list (for you!)

Guest Accounts are a new, completely free, view-only level of SmugMug membership. They’re required when using Private Sharing, when the person you choose doesn’t already have their own SmugMug membership. Each Guest Account’s “homepage” will display all the galleries that are shared with them, for easy access, but they won’t be able to upload their own photos or create their own galleries.

Note: Your existing SmugMug galleries haven’t changed, so you can keep sharing Public, Unlisted, and Passworded galleries with fans, no login needed! Guest Accounts are ONLY required when you set your gallery to Access > People I Choose.

Guest Accounts can also leave comments without having to login through a separate Social Media account.

Contacts used to live in a midnight-dark corner of email sharing, in the old SmugMug. We’ve pulled them out and given them a serious makeover so you can better keep track of the people you share photos with on the web. Find them now in their own tab in your Account Settings. From there you can add new people, edit their info and gallery access, and see whether they’ve accepted your Private Sharing invites yet or not.

Tip: Friends you invite to view galleries automagically get added to your Contacts list.

Finally, we’ve added a new system page to your site. A 401 error page is what viewers will see if they try to view a privately shared gallery without the proper invite. Why is this important? It’s a great opportunity to customize this page like your other system pages to include helpful information like your contact info and step-by-step directions on what to do next. It always pays to be nice! Visit your site /access-denied to see and customize this page.


How is Private Sharing Different From Sharegroups or Events?

Private Sharing – and the special invite link your friends receive – ties the gallery to a person, not to a link or a password, which are two things that can fall into the wrong hands. Once your invitee clicks your Private Sharing invite link and signs in to SmugMug, they’ve redeemed it and the link can’t be reused by anyone else. The only way someone else can view what you’ve shared is if they were looking over your invitee’s shoulder. That’s huge!

Here’s a chart that helps compare our top group-sharing features:

Join Us Online and Ask SmugMug Anything

Want to get the full walkthrough on Private Sharing and all the new features, or perhaps you still have questions after trying it yourself?

Join us online for a 1-hour live demo on Tuesday, March 3rd at 5:30-6:30pm PT (8:30-9:30pm ET) where we’ll explain it step by step and answer all your questions.

Sign up to talk with us: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6410213627830463233

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Private Sharing is being announced first to our DGrin community because we value your experience and seek your feedback. We ask that you to try it out, play with it, experience it, and let us know what you think.


You made it! We know this is a lot of new info, so please don’t hesitate to peruse the new help pages and register for the Q&A above. And if you’re so excited you simply can’t wait, our marvelous Support Heroes are ready to hear from you.

Help Pages can be found here:
- Can I share photos privately with only the people I choose?
- How do I create a Guest Account?

Allen

On the contact tab (Account Settings) I see email addresses. Can a note field be added for each contact
so we can enter something about them? It's not always obvious who the person is and a short note
would be a great reminder.

Allen

When an invited person uses the "link", what page do they land on? Assume it's the log in or create log in page.
And eventually gets to the "Shared With Me" page which looks like it only contains individual galleries. How is this
relevant if you're trying to share a folder with sub-folders and galleries so they can browse up and down? I currently
use a top level folder password (flows down) for my whole family tree. This allows them to enter the tree at any level,
enter PW, then browse everywhere.

My question is "Can a folder with flow down be added to the "Shared With Me" page?


Just a side nit from 1st post:
“Shared With Me” was created using a word processor and has non-html correct appositives.
Should be "Shared With Me".

leftquark

Allen wrote: »

On the contact tab (Account Settings) I see email addresses. Can a note field be added for each contact so we can enter something about them? It's not always obvious who the person is and a short note would be a great reminder.

You can add a "Contact Name" for anyone in your account settings so that you can know who each contact/email address is:

Allen wrote: »

When an invited person uses the "link", what page do they land on? Assume it's the log in or create log in page. And eventually gets to the "Shared With Me" page which looks like it only contains individual galleries.

Yes, when they accept the invitation from the email, they are taken to a page to either login or create an account. They'll end up at the Shared with Me page.

Allen wrote: »

How is this relevant if you're trying to share a folder with sub-folders and galleries so they can browse up and down? My question is "Can a folder with flow down be added to the "Shared With Me" page?

Folders can be set to Private Sharing, in which case the folder will show up on the "Shared with Me" page. Additionally, if logged in, users with access can browse to the folder through your normal site structure and gain access to all the folders within it. They do not have to enter through the Shared with Me page.

Allen

Thanks Aaron, just thinking of different scenarios that might be confusing to some (and me ).

Allen

Another thought.
Adding a folder, does everything below it auto inherit? Does everything below have to be
manually checked (looked at) for "inherit" setting?

How would a gallery below if it already had a password react?
Also unlisted pages in tree?

evansmug

Hi Allen,

When the access type of "People I Choose" is enabled on a Folder, everything below will indeed inherit that access type. You won't need to go into each sub-item and enable it manually. For example, if you invite user A to have access to the "Birds" Folder , user A will automatically have access to "Birds" and all Folders/Galleries/Pages within. You are of course free to add additional users at the lower levels. If you have a "Sparrow" gallery in the "Birds" Folder, you can add user B on the gallery. They won't be able to hop back up to the "Birds" Folder, but they can have access to that one specific gallery. User A, meanwhile, has access to the "Birds" Folder and the "Sparrow" gallery.

This new access type becomes the most strict security setting we offer, while still allowing other people to view your photos. Setting a gallery to "Private" is still the most strict in absolute terms, as no one but you will be able to see or access it. Since Private Sharing is more strict than Password, it's not possible to have a passworded gallery live within a Folder that has Private Sharing enabled. Once the Folder is set to be Privately Shared, all its contents inherit this setting, and they too benefit from this stricter access type.

Unlisted items behave in much the same way as they always have. You can have a Gallery set to Private Sharing, and also be Unlisted. That way, no one will discover the Gallery via general navigation or search of your site. The only people that can access it will need the invitation from you.

Hope that clarifies!

photoclick

"People I choose" is not in the option list for any of my folders or galleries when I open Settings in the organizer. I suspect it might be due to the fact that my site has not been unveiled? Can you confirm, please?

evansmug

Hi there photoclick,

Yes, you are correct. This new feature is available to sites fully on new SmugMug.

JamesGPhoto

I hope this is just the beginning of a revamp for the contacts area...

markderry

Branding?
Aaron, This looks great! I just tried it out and when the person I share galleries with looks at photos I shared with them they see a generic Smugmug Page. Is there any way to get the share area to inherit my branding?

markderry

Given this new sharing system can our customers use the Smugmug app for their phone/ipad and use their personal user login to access the photos you share with them?

evansmug

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the feedback! The "Shared with Me" page currently will not inherit your branding since it's a general collection of photos that have been shared with that particular viewer, and they may have photos from other photographers as well. That being said, we've got many ideas in mind, and this request absolutely makes sense. Same for your question about utilizing this feature in the app. Stay tuned!

markderry

When a user logs into the Smugmug app this is what they see. It may be a bug. The FXehcXYN... seems out of place.

evansmug

Mark - the support for Guest Accounts in the app is definitely coming. Not technically a bug, but in progress. We'll certainly update everyone when that becomes available. Great photos by the way!

markderry

Evan there is some limited branding that I didn't realize was there. It puts my user name on the bottom of all of the galleries as seen below. That will work for me for now.

evansmug

Just a friendly bump for any folks that come across this thread about our live webinar for Private Sharing!

Join us online for a 1-hour live demo on Tuesday, March 3rd at 5:30-6:30pm PT (8:30-9:30pm ET) where we’ll explain it step by step and answer all your questions.

Sign up to talk with us: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/reg...13627830463233

markderry

I may have found a small bug in that you cannot change the setting of multiple galleries to "share with people I choose". I realize that this could be done with a folder and inheriting the security settings however depending on how you have your site organized that may not work the best.

markderry

Also when I try to build a folder and let the content galleries inherit "people I share with", when I look in the individual galleries settings it doesn't show the people I have added to the folder.

evansmug

Mark, you're correct about Bulk Gallery Settings. We don't currently support the "People I Choose" setting in that context. We'll take note of the request and thanks for your feedback in that regard.

With respect to your latter question, you *should* see the people that you invited at the folder level in each gallery. Any chance you can provide me with a URL to a folder in question so I can take a look?

nfocuz

Not really private if the receipiant needs to register...
Having the recipient of my request to privately share my photos should not have to create a SmugMug account. It's not really private is it? Take a creative page from Dropbox and Box. The onus of keeping maintaining privacy falls to the responsibility to the sender, not the recipient. By the way, does SmugMug offer monetary rewards for having individuals create account?