QR sharing for events - how it works

A QR share is how someone outside your gallery gets in. An organizer creates a share link - and a QR code that points to it - and chooses what it grants. Opening the link or scanning the code is enough to see the gallery, with no separate sign-in step. Adding to it is not: a photo can only be uploaded from a signed-in PhotoLog account, and a share code becomes upload access by being opened while signed in to one.

What a share grants: view, or view plus upload

There is no upload-only share. Every share link PhotoLog can generate for an event includes view access to the gallery - the only choice an organizer makes is whether to also grant upload:

• View. The holder can see the gallery’s photos and videos. They cannot add anything.
• View plus upload. The holder can see the gallery’s photos and videos, and add their own.

Seeing the gallery is never withheld from an upload-capable share - the two are not independent toggles a link could combine into “upload without view.”

Viewing needs the code; adding needs an account as well

Those two levels describe what the link grants. What a person holding it can do also depends on whether they are signed in to PhotoLog:

• To look at the gallery, the code is enough. Someone who scans it sees the photos and videos in an ordinary browser, with nothing to create and nothing to install.
• To add to the gallery, they need a PhotoLog account and they need to be signed in to it. Opening a view-plus-upload code while signed in is what attaches the gallery to that account at the level the code grants. The code carries the access; the account is what holds it.

Someone who opens an upload-capable code while signed out lands on the view-only page. It carries no upload control and no prompt to sign in, so nothing on screen explains what is missing. That is worth saying on the card or in the message that carries the code, rather than leaving it to be worked out at the event.

Uploads appear right away - there is no review queue yet

A contributor’s upload becomes part of the gallery as soon as it finishes uploading. Nothing in the product today holds an upload in a pending state, routes it to the organizer for approval before it’s visible, or gives a contributor a pending/approved/rejected status to watch.

Per-QR moderation, with those states, is planned and not yet built. When it ships, an organizer will be able to turn on review for a share, so a contributor’s upload waits for approval before others see it, and a contributor will be able to see and remove their own uploads.

Managing a share

The person who created a share link - typically the event’s organizer - can deactivate it at any time. Deactivating a link stops it from granting new access; it does not remove photos or videos that were already added while the link was active.