How to share a Google Photos album with family
A shared album in Google Photos is one place where everyone in the family can see the same set of photos, comment on them, and add their own if you let them. This guide creates one from scratch and shares it, using the desktop browser version at photos.google.com. The phone app uses the same menus, with the icons in slightly different places.
What you'll need: A Google Account with the photos already in Google Photos. Family members need a Google Account of their own to be invited by name, to comment, or to add photos. Anyone with a link can view the album without one.
Open Google Photos in your browser
Go to photos.google.com and sign in if you aren't already.
Select the photos to share
Move the mouse over a photo and click the tick that appears in its top-left corner. Do the same for each photo you want in the album. To take a whole day at once, click the tick next to that day's date heading.
Start a new shared album
At the top of the page, click the + icon (its tooltip reads Add to). In the menu that appears, click Shared album, then New shared album.
Give the album a name
Click where it says Add a title and type a name the family will recognise, for example:
Cornwall, August 2026Click Share
Click Share in the top-right corner. A panel opens asking who to send the album to.
Invite people by name
Type each person's name, email address or phone number into the box at the top of the panel and click them when they appear in the list. People you've shared with before are already listed, so you may only need to click their faces. When everyone is selected, click Send.
Each person gets an email, and a notification in Google Photos if they use it, with a link that opens the album in their own account.
Or send a link instead
If a relative doesn't have a Google Account, or you'd rather send the album through WhatsApp or a group chat, click Create link in the same share panel, then Copy. Paste the link wherever you like.
Decide whether family can add their own photos
Open the album, click the three-dot menu (More) in the top-right corner, then click Options. Under Sharing you'll find three switches: Collaborate lets everyone with access add photos, Comments and likes lets them react, and Link sharing controls whether the link from step 7 works at all.
Set them how you want and close the panel. The changes apply straight away.
Variations
Click Albums in the left-hand sidebar, open the album, and click the share icon in the top-right corner. From there it's the same as step 6 or step 7. The album stays as it was; it's now shared as well.
If you want your partner to see every photo you take without you doing anything, Google Photos has a separate feature called partner sharing. On photos.google.com, click the gear icon for Settings, open Sharing, then Partner sharing. You choose whether to share all photos or only photos of certain people, and optionally only photos taken after a date you pick, then enter your partner's email address. It works with one person only, and they need a Google Account.
In the Google Photos app, press and hold a photo to start selecting, tap + at the top, then Shared album. The naming, sharing and options screens follow the same order as above, and the sharing switches are under the three-dot menu in the album.
Troubleshooting
Open the album, go to More › Options and check that Link sharing is switched on. If you turned it off at any point, the old link stops working for everyone, and switching it back on creates a new link you'll need to send again.
Open the photo inside the album, click the three-dot menu and choose Remove from album. Then switch off Collaborate in the album's options to stop it happening again. That switch is all-or-nothing: you can't block one person from adding while letting the rest carry on.
In the album's options, under Sharing, switch off Link sharing and remove each person listed by clicking the three-dot menu next to their name and choosing Remove person. Photos that other people added leave with them. Your own photos stay in your library whatever you do to the album.
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