Share event photos with absent family
The event is over. You have 200 photos in a shared gallery and a list of people who weren't there: grandma who couldn't travel, a cousin living overseas, a close friend who got sick at the last minute. Now you need to get those photos to them without spending an afternoon on it.
Sending individual photos by text is what happens when you don't have a plan. It's how you end up sending 40 separate messages, running out of steam around photo 20, and never actually sharing the rest.
The case for a single link
A direct link to a gallery is the simplest approach. One link, works for everyone, and the recipient can browse at their own pace rather than getting a wall of out-of-order attachments. The people on the receiving end don't need to create an account or download anything. It just opens.
Your recipients are not all tech-comfortable. Grandma doesn't want to create an account to see photos of the family. Your overseas cousin doesn't want to deal with a subscription prompt. A link that opens in a browser, on any device, without friction, is the version that actually gets used.
What to get right before you share
Privacy is the first thing. If the photos are personal, family-only, or include people who didn't consent to public sharing, password-protect the link. It takes 30 seconds to set up and means you're not relying on the link staying obscure.
Check that the link works on mobile before you send it. Most of your recipients are going to open it on a phone. If the gallery breaks on mobile or requires a specific browser, you'll spend the next week fielding troubleshooting texts.
Make sure recipients can download individual photos. People want to save their favorites, print them, or set them as a phone wallpaper. A gallery where you can view but not download is only half useful.
The longevity problem
Some sharing services give you a link that expires in 24 or 48 hours. This is fine for sending a contract or a file. It is not fine for family photos. The cousin in a different timezone might open the link in two days. Grandma might not look at it for a week because she had a doctor's appointment. The link needs to work for at least a few months.
Check the expiration settings on whatever service you're using before you send. If there's no clear answer on how long the link stays active, assume it will expire sooner than you'd like.
Send the link with a short note explaining what it is. "Here are photos from the party, you can download any you like, the link works for 60 days" takes ten seconds to write and saves three rounds of confused replies.