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🔗 Sharing

LibrePhotos offers multiple ways to share your photos and albums — with other users on your instance, or publicly with anyone via a link.

The Sharing Page​

The Sharing page (accessible from the navigation) is your central hub for all sharing activity. It provides an overview of:

  • Public Users — Other users on your instance who have made their profile public
  • Shared With You — Photos and albums that others have shared with you
  • You Shared — Photos and albums you have shared with others
  • Public Links — Albums you've shared publicly via link

Sharing Albums with Users​

You can share any user album with other users on your LibrePhotos instance:

  1. Navigate to the album you want to share
  2. Select any photo to activate the selection toolbar
  3. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) → "Sharing"
  4. Search for users and toggle sharing on or off for each

Shared albums appear in the recipient's Sharing → Shared With Me → Albums section.

Sharing Photos with Users​

You can share individual photos (or a selection of photos) with other users:

  1. Select one or more photos from any view
  2. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) → "Share"
  3. Search for users and toggle sharing on or off for each

Shared photos appear in the recipient's Sharing → Shared With Me → Photos section, grouped by the person who shared them.

You can create a public link for any user album, making it accessible to anyone — even people without an account on your LibrePhotos instance.

  1. Navigate to the album you want to share publicly
  2. Open the sharing dialog (three-dot menu → "Sharing")
  3. Toggle "Public sharing" on
  4. A unique URL slug is generated automatically

The public album is accessible at https://your-instance/public/s/{slug}.

When public sharing is enabled, you can configure:

Custom Slug​

Change the URL slug to something memorable (3–64 characters). For example: summer-vacation-2025 → /public/s/summer-vacation-2025.

Expiration​

Set when the link should expire:

  • 7 days
  • 30 days
  • 90 days
  • Never (no expiration)

After expiration, the link will no longer work.

Privacy Controls​

Fine-tune what information visitors can see on the public album page:

SettingWhat it controls
Show timestampsWhether photo dates and times are visible
Show locationWhether GPS coordinates and place names are shown
Show camera infoWhether camera model, lens, focal length, aperture, ISO, and shutter speed are shown
Show captionsWhether AI-generated or manual captions are visible
Show facesWhether recognized people's names are displayed

Each of these settings can be toggled independently per album. When set to null (default), the user-level defaults from your settings are used. You can configure your defaults in Settings → Public Sharing Defaults.

The Public Album Experience​

Visitors to a public album link see:

  • A photo grid with the album's photos
  • A lightbox viewer for browsing individual photos
  • Photo details (subject to your privacy control settings)
  • No login required

Managing Your Shared Content​

Shared By Me​

Navigate to Sharing → By Me to see:

  • Photos tab — All photos you've shared, grouped by recipient
  • Albums tab — All albums you've shared, grouped by recipient

Shared With Me​

Navigate to Sharing → With Me to see:

  • Photos tab — Photos others have shared with you, grouped by sender
  • Albums tab — Albums others have shared with you, grouped by sender

Navigate to Sharing → Links to see all albums you've made publicly accessible, with quick access to copy or manage each link.

Public User Profiles​

Users can make their profile publicly accessible by enabling Public Sharing in their profile settings. When enabled, other users on the instance can browse their public photos via the Sharing → Public page.