How long do the photos from your event stay up?
This is the question that gets half answered on nearly every pricing page in this market. Here is the whole answer: how long with us, when the clock starts running, what happens after that, and how long the others give you.
the short answer
With us an event stays active for 45 days on the entry plan and up to 365 days on the larger ones, counted from the first time you publish and not from the date of the party. After that it closes for guests and goes into archive mode, where you can still download everything. Across the rest of the market it runs from 7 days to storage with no end date.
When does that clock actually start running?
From the first time you publish. Not from the date of your party, not from the moment you pay and not from creating the page. In practice that is weeks: you can build your page in March, have the cards printed, get everything ready and publish the day before the party. Until that moment the counter stands still.
Publishing is reversible too. Take the event offline and access for guests is gone immediately. That is the button you are looking for if something is in there that should not be, because it is faster than removing photos one by one. What you do after that is written up separately.
And deleted photos are not gone straight away. They sit in the bin for fourteen days, in case an administrator clicked through and then had second thoughts.
What happens when the active period ends?
The event closes for your guests. Their link stops working, the slideshow stops, and nothing more can be added. For you as the organiser it goes into archive mode: you log in and still download everything as a zip, at full size, exactly as it was uploaded.
That difference is bigger than it looks, because part of this market does it another way. Sharetale writes in its own frequently asked questions that files are cleaned up automatically after the retention period. At Snappshot photos are deleted after thirty days by default. If you have not fetched the zip in time there, the conversation is over.
How long do the others give you?
| supplier | shortest plan | longest plan |
|---|---|---|
| Sharetale | 7 days, on the 19 euro plan | 30 days, on the 79 euro plan |
| Fotify | 7 days of access on the free plan | 365 days of access, at 49.99 euros |
| Snappshot | 45 days on the entry package | 30 days, even on the most expensive plan of 129 euros |
| Quipic | 30 days on the free plan | 1 year, on the 69 euro plan |
| Kiekje | 30 days, at 24.99 euros | 12 months, at 89.99 euros |
| Lense | 12 months | 12 months, on every plan including the free one |
| Knipsmig | 1 month on the free plan | no end date, on the paid plan of 29 dollars |
| EventSnap | 45 days on the entry package | 365 days, then archive mode where you keep downloading |
Checked on the suppliers' own pages on 30 August 2026. Wedbox keeps your album for two months free and charges 2.50 dollars a month after that to keep it online longer. What those plans cost otherwise is in the guide about prices.
How long should you leave the album open?
Longer than you think, for two reasons. The first is that the uploads keep coming. The best photos do not arrive that evening but the day after, when people go through their camera roll on the sofa at home and remember there was a link.
The second is that your photographer is not in yet. Eight to ten weeks is a normal delivery time for wedding photos, and in that stretch this album is all you have. What you can already look back on in those first weeks is written up separately.
For a company party or a tournament the sum is different. There the album is usually done within two weeks, but in November the communications team still wants one photo for the annual report. That is not a reason to buy a longer period, that is a reason to download in time and take it out of your own folder.
Closing for guests is not the same as throwing it away
When the active period ends, the event goes into archive mode. Guests cannot reach it, you still can, and you pull the whole event down as a zip whenever you think of it. Which term belongs to which plan is on what it costs.
Where are the photos during that time?
On European servers, and not open on the internet. Every link to a file is signed and expires by itself, so an address somebody once copied does not work later on. The album is not in Google and there is no browsable page where you come across somebody else's party.
If you want to know exactly, including who can technically reach them and what happens to a file you throw away, the whole story about the storage is written up separately. For a company or a club that is often the question that comes before the price.
Questions about the retention period
When does the counter start?
At the first time you publish. Not when you create the page and not when you pay. So you can get everything ready weeks in advance without it costing you any of your active period.
What exactly happens on the last day?
The event closes for guests: their link stops working and the slideshow stops. It goes into archive mode and you as the organiser can still download everything. Nothing disappears at that moment.
How long can I keep downloading?
Downloading stays possible in archive mode. Do it straight away anyway: a zip on your own drive is the one copy no service has any say over, and that goes for us as much as for the rest.
Can I choose a longer period?
Yes, the term comes with the plan: 45 days on the entry plan, up to 365 days on the larger ones. Which period sits with which plan is on what it costs. Pick a longer one if you are planning to have a photo book made later.
Can I close the album sooner?
Yes. Take the event offline and access for guests is gone immediately. You can publish it again afterwards, for instance if you want to walk through the uploads calmly before everybody sees them.
How long can I get a deleted photo back?
Fourteen days. Deleted files go to the bin and stay there, so a misclick by an administrator is not a disaster.
What if I only realise after the closing date that I downloaded nothing?
With us it is not too late, because you can still fetch the zip in archive mode. With a number of other services it is: Sharetale cleans the files up after the retention period and Snappshot deletes them after thirty days.
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