Client Album Downloads

ptrbee

The is a request to have a feature that you've now removed, to be put back to the way it was.

I have a business account since 2012 and would set my client albums to unlisted, once I've retouched their files I would upload to their folders and the clients can download. Saturday I received an email from Smugmug informing me that someone is requesting to download an album that I had just delivered and I thought the client was doing something strange. She also found it confusing and had downloaded her files individually on her phone and emailed them to herself so she could get them on her laptop. Yesterday I got a second email like that and contacted support to find someone at Smugmug decided to make my life difficult and I am actually paying a handsome sum each year for this.

Now when the client tries to download a gallery they are prompted to enter their email address and an email is sent to their pro (me) who then has to authorise the download. Yes you, the pro has already set the gallery to download but Smugmug has changed it, now you either need to (1) make the gallery public (really, for a client? and if they are nudes?) or (2) password the gallery, which I find when they forget they email you which means more admin for me). Also guess what, the link Smugmug sends to the customer only last two weeks so if your client loses the images or just need to download you have to do it all over again. If you are a business customer as I am then you are actually paying Smugmug to make you life e difficult!

Wetransfer has this option and I could use this but I am running a business and branding is important for me to be able to get work to pay the yearly fees and survive so I do not want to be spending time uselessly.

Please fix this, just leave it the way it was!

Sheaf

Hey ptrbee,

Thanks for writing this. I completely empathize as my wife is a pro photographer who distributes digital files in unlisted galleries for free through SM as part of her sitting fee. Your workflow certainly isn't unique.

I'm a product manager at SmugMug and ultimately it was my call to put this authorization step in place. There's a longer explanation, but essentially we want to ensure that customers are aware that Unlisted is a privacy setting and not a security setting. And as a privacy setting, the owner loses control of who can access it as soon as it is shared a single time since then that person could share it widely themselves.

We take both privacy and security very seriously here, so we're always concerned if some customers don't fully understand the implications of a setting like Unlisted. And we want to be especially careful when it comes to bulk downloading original-sized photos. We have received a lot of great feedback on it and we're going to make some adjustments soon to make sure, at the very least, that people like you who understand the implications have no impact at all to your workflow. So hold on a bit longer!

Sorry about the problems and thanks again for the request.

jh4wvu

I also find this inconvenient. I had a client request photos but was still asleep when they needed them. They then texted to figure out why they hadn't received a link. Of course, I didn't get to it until several hours later.

It would be nice if we had an option to turn on/off authorization.

Chris

OffTopic

Sheaf please, you should not make such a drastic change to your pros' workflow without at least giving us a heads up (and preferably seeking input first). Nothing makes us look more like an idiot to our clients than getting caught off guard with this kind of thing (not knowing how your own website works is embarrassing!). I get why you might have concerns based on your wife's experience with portrait clients, but as a freelancer who works with editorial clients I need my process to be as simple and seamless as possible. If I'm hard to work with and there are built-in delays, it's too easy for my clients to go elsewhere. I'm already at a disadvantage by handling licensing on my own rather than relying on a stock company to do it for me. I'm not worried about an editorial client distributing a link.

Truthfully I find it much easier to just send the files via dropbox but when it's a first-time client I prefer to send them to my site. Agree with the others that we need to be able to turn off the authorization requirement.

tomnovy

Hey Everyone. This issue has now been resolved. Download All requests from Unlisted galleries do not require confirmation from the account owner.