Shared photo albums

One link, one passcode, everyone sees the photos

Make an album on your phone, send one link and a short passcode, and the people who were there can look through the pictures from any browser. Nothing to install, no account to create, and the photos stay on your phone the whole time.

Get PhoneRig on Google Play

Free · no accounts, for you or your guests · works in any browser

How it works

From "we should share those photos" to a live album

Sharing after a wedding, a birthday or a trip usually collapses into a group chat, a folder nobody can open, and three people asking for the link again. An album fixes that with two things everyone already has: a link and a browser.

Create the album on your phone

Give it a name, and decide whether guests may add their own photos. Guest uploads are off unless you turn them on, and you set that per album.

Send the link and the passcode

One address and one short passcode, sent however you already talk to people: a message, an email, a note on the table at the party. There is nothing to sign up for on either end.

Guests type a name at the gate

They enter the passcode and a display name, then the album opens. Because everyone names themselves on the way in, every picture shows who added it, and you can filter the album down to one person.

Everything lands on your phone

Guests can look at photos and download the ones they want. If you allowed uploads, what they add is served from your phone and saved into your own gallery, at full size, exactly as it was sent.

An album works at whatever address your phone already has: your home Wi-Fi for people in the room, your free yourname.phonerig.app address for everyone else, or your own domain if you have one. The link is the same link.

The fair question

Why not Google Photos, or just the group chat?

Both work, and for a handful of pictures they are fine. Here is what changes when the album is served from your own phone instead.

Your guests do not sign up for anything

No account, no app install, no "share with people who have this app". A browser and the link is the whole requirement, which matters most for the relatives who are exactly the reason you are sharing the photos.

Full-size files, not resized copies

What arrives is stored as it was sent. PhoneRig does not re-encode or shrink photos on the way in, so the version in the album is the version the camera made.

The photos stay on your hardware

They are served from your phone and saved into your own gallery. Nothing is uploaded to PhoneRig's servers, so there is no copy sitting in someone else's account to be scanned, indexed or mined.

Uploads are off until you say so

An album is view and download only unless you switch guest uploads on for it. Turn it on for the wedding, leave it off for the family archive.

Only you can delete

Guests add and download. Removing anything, or the album itself, is the owner's job and happens in the app on your phone.

Free, and the limit is your own storage

Albums are part of the free PhoneRig app: no plan, no per-gigabyte bill, no album that expires. The ceiling is the free space on the phone, and a single file can be up to 500 MB.

The honest trade-off. Your phone is the host, so the album is reachable while the phone is on and connected. PhoneRig keeps the server running with the screen off and tells you if it goes offline, but a phone left flat in a bag is a phone that is not serving photos. Leave it on a charger for the weekend everyone is looking.

Questions people actually ask

Sharing photos without a cloud account

Do my guests need an app or an account?

No. They open the link in whatever browser is already on their phone or laptop, type the short passcode and a display name, and the album opens. There is no sign-up, no install, and no email address to hand over.

Where are the photos actually stored?

On your phone. The album is served by your own device, and anything guests add is saved into your phone's own gallery, so it shows up alongside your other pictures. Nothing is sent to PhoneRig's servers.

Can guests add their own photos?

Yes, if you enable it for that album. Guest uploads are off by default, and the setting is per album, so you can open one album to everyone and keep another view only.

Is it free?

Yes. Photo albums are part of the free PhoneRig app, with no subscription and no storage plan. The only limit is the free space on your phone, and a single file can be up to 500 MB.

Will iPhone guests be able to see the album?

Yes. Guests need nothing but a browser, so iPhones, iPads, Windows laptops and Macs all work. Only the phone doing the hosting has to be an Android phone running PhoneRig.

How do people in another country see photos on my phone?

Your phone keeps an outbound tunnel open to Cloudflare, so your album has a normal HTTPS address, either a free yourname.phonerig.app one or your own domain. That works from anywhere without port forwarding, a static IP or any router setup.

How private is it?

The album opens for people who have both the link and the passcode, and it is not listed anywhere for anyone else to find. The photos are never copied to PhoneRig's servers, and deleting is the owner's job, so nothing leaves your phone and nothing disappears without you.

Your photos, your phone

Send the link tonight.

Install PhoneRig on an Android phone, make an album, and everyone who was there can be looking through the pictures in a couple of minutes.

Get PhoneRig on Google Play