A party QR code that gathers every guest’s photos.

The code is a shortcut to your party album. A guest scans it, taps to add photos, picks a few from their library and waits until the upload is confirmed. It works on whatever phone a guest brings.

At a birthday, the best photos are usually the ones the person celebrating never sees: their face while the candles are lit, friends arriving, the speech from across the room. A code near the cake table catches people at the moment they have just taken those photos.

• Name the album after the person. “Ella’s birthday” tells guests what they are scanning before they read anything else.
• Put one sign by the cake and one by the drinks. Those are the two places nearly everyone visits.
• Ask for photos of the guest of honour. It is easy to end up with plenty of photos of the food and decorations and very few of the person whose birthday it is.

For a children’s party, the guests sending photos are usually the parents. Many parents are careful about where pictures of their children end up, so tell them who can see the album and consider a password or Full’s private collection (see privacy).

An 18th, a 21st, a 30th, a 40th or a 60th is often as much about the years before as the night itself. Open the album a few days early and ask friends and family to add old photos: school trips, holidays, the haircut everyone remembers. On the night, guests add new photos to the same album.

Keep the hosting period in mind: it starts with the first successful upload, so early throwback uploads start the countdown before the party. A Free album stays open for 14 days from that first upload; if you start collecting a week or two ahead, Mini (30 days) or Full (90 days) gives you more time.

Old prints count too: snap one with a phone and upload the picture.

At a house party, people drift between the kitchen, the garden and the sofa, so one sign by the front door is easy to miss. Put the code where people stand still.

• Kitchen. Many house parties end up there. A sign on a cupboard door at eye level works better than one flat on a crowded worktop.
• Next to the drinks. People wait there with a hand free.
• The garden or balcony. If people go out for air, put a sign where the light is good enough to scan.
• The coat pile. A last sign where people collect their coats catches them as they check their phones before leaving.

Party lighting is the usual problem. Low light, coloured bulbs and candles make codes harder to scan, so print the code reasonably large, keep it matte rather than glossy and place it near a lamp. Send the link in your party group chat as well, so guests can open it without scanning.

Many guests take photos during the party and only share them later. Expect three waves:

1. During quiet moments, such as while food is served or after the cake, when people scroll back through their phones.
2. On the way home or the next morning, when they look through what they took.
3. After a reminder, from guests who meant to and forgot.

So don’t judge the album by how full it is at midnight. A short mention at the right moment helps: “If you’ve got photos of tonight, the code is on the kitchen door. Pick a few and wait for the upload to finish.”

Many of the best party moments are videos: everyone singing, the toast, the dance floor at its fullest, the moment the surprise lands. If you want them, say so, because many guests assume a photo album only takes photos.

A Free album is photo-only. Mini includes 10 videos of up to 100 MB each, and Full has no fixed video count within its storage, with up to 500 MB per video. You can also add a video pack ($4.99) to a Free album.

Ask for “the best minute” rather than the whole speech: it makes a better album, and long clips can exceed the per-video limit (a file-size cap, or 2 minutes for a video pack on a Free album).

A screen showing the party as it happens draws people in, and seeing other guests’ photos appear is one of the best reminders to add your own.

The live slideshow is included with Full and available as an add-on ($4.99) for Free and Mini albums, bought by the host. It adds new photos as they arrive. To show it on a TV, open it in Chrome on a computer or Android device, signed in as the host, and use Google Cast, or connect a laptop to the screen. Google Cast is not available for encrypted albums, so use a connected laptop for those.

Send one reminder the day after, while people still remember who took what. FotoDrop doesn’t send it for you, so use your own group chat or messages:

“Thanks for coming last night! If you took any photos or videos, please add a few here by [date]: [album link]. Keep the page open until the upload is confirmed.”

Before sending, check the album’s remaining space and expiry date in album management. Choose a deadline that leaves you time to download the photos before hosting ends.

Party photos are not always ones people want everyone to see, so tell guests who the album is for.

Guests open the album in their browser without installing an app or creating an account. By default, people with the shared link or QR code can view its photos while the album is active. A link can be forwarded, and recipients can save copies.

• Password: guests need it as well as the link.
• Browser encryption: photos are encrypted in the browser before upload, and the key travels in the complete link and its QR code. FotoDrop keeps recovery information so you can get the key back by signing in, which means FotoDrop itself is not locked out of the key.
• Private collection (Full): guests see only their own uploads until you review the photos, remove any you would rather not share and publish the album.

We strip GPS location and device details from the optimised photos, which matters when the party is at someone’s home. Rarely, a photo can’t be optimised and is uploaded as selected; it then keeps its original metadata, including location. Videos are uploaded as recorded and can keep their location data. If that matters, ask guests to turn off location for their camera before filming.

FotoDrop does not use your photos for advertising, profiling, face recognition or AI training.

Your Free album holds up to 100 photos in total and stays available for 14 days from its first successful upload. No payment card needed. Videos are not included.

A Free album suits a small gathering where you only want photos. If you expect lots of guests, want videos or plan to collect throwback photos in advance, Mini ($9) or Full ($19) gives you more room and time; both are paid once per album. You can upgrade the same album later, so the printed code keeps working. If everyone is already in one group chat and you only expect a few photos, that chat may be enough. A QR album helps when guests don’t all share a chat, or you want everything in one place you can download.

Photos are normally optimised to at most 4,000 pixels on the longest edge. Keep the camera originals separately if you need untouched files, larger prints or room for substantial cropping.

For the full set-up, see how a QR code for photos works, and download an editable sign from QR signs and wording.