iOS offers a highly convenient feature known as Shared Albums (formerly called iCloud Photo Sharing), allowing you to effortlessly share complete photo albums with anyone. This functionality enables you to create or join collaborative albums with other iCloud users, providing an interactive platform for viewing and exchanging comments on shared media and cherished memories. Compared to other methods, Shared Albums provide a more engaging and interactive way to distribute your photos. Additionally, if you happen to own multiple Apple devices, you can use Shared Albums to seamlessly synchronize your photos across all of them.
Shared albums on iPhone present an excellent opportunity to share up to 5,000 photos or videos with a maximum of 100 iCloud users. However, certain restrictions apply to the number of photos, albums, and invites you can share. Apple sets a limit of 200 albums for both sharing and subscribing, which is usually more than sufficient for most users. Moreover, there’s no need to fret about iCloud storage since Shared Albums won’t consume any additional space unless you import new photos or videos to your library.
It’s essential to note that invitees can contribute to a Shared Album by adding photos, but they cannot modify or delete original photos unless they import them to their personal libraries first. Now that we’ve covered these essential details, let’s explore how you can easily share a Photo Album on your iPhone.
How to share albums between two (or more) iPhones (or iPads)
This can be done by following a few simple steps:
- Go to Settings > Photos > Shared Albums and toggle on the switch.
- Open your Photos app and select all the photos you’d like in the shared album.
- Tap on Share and select Add to Shared Album > New Shared Album. If you wish to share a previously created album, you can do so by opening the album and tapping the three horizontal dots at the top of the screen to share it, but you’ll still have to create a new Shared Album folder for it.
- Name the album and tap “Next.”
- Now you need to select the people who you’re gonna share the album with by tapping the + icon in the recipient bar to invite people from your contacts or type an email address or phone number to add recipients if they are not in your contacts list.
- After selecting “Create,” your Shared Album will now be accessible to all selected iOS users.
To create a new shared album on your iPhone, you have a quick and easy method. Simply go to the Albums tab and tap the “+” icon located at the top. Then, select ‘New Shared Album’ from the options presented. The newly created album will be conveniently placed in the “Shared Albums” section within your Photos app.
Once you have the shared album, adding or removing photos is a breeze – just tap on the album to make changes. To access more settings for the shared album, simply tap the avatar icon positioned at the top of the album. From here, you can enable the “Subscribers Can Post” feature, which allows participants to contribute photos and videos to the shared album. Moreover, you can toggle on the Notifications switch to receive updates on any activity within the album. Should you decide to delete the album, the option is available as well.
Can I share my iOS photo album with an Android user?
No, unfortunately, there is no such option to share iOS Photo Albums with users using a different mobile operating system.
There is, however, an option to make your album Publicly accessible and share a website link with the non-iOS user. Although this will only give them access to view the contents of the album and not to edit, add or remove photos or videos from the album, it is still considered an easy way how to share the photo contents with coworkers/family/friends etc.
To share your album with Android users or any other non-iOS user, simply head to the Album, click on 3 dots in the right-hand corner > Select Share Photos > Copy iCloud Link. The link is now temporarily saved in the “copy-paste” memory and you can just insert it (long tap and select Paste) to your browser or share it in Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, Instagram, Facebook or any other social media platform.
Visitors will then be able to see and download Photos and videos from the shared album.
