At SmugMug, you've got many ways to share your photos with family, friends, and clients. We also take your privacy seriously and offer a variety of security options for folders, galleries, and pages so your photos can be shared or locked away however you wish. 

Lock down your entire site or only specific areas—or nothing at all. Using SmugMug’s built-in visibility and access settings allows you to customize access to your photos so it’s just right for you and your visitors.

You have three modes of visibility: public (anyone), unlisted (anyone with the link), and private (only me). You also have different types of access, which change depending on the visibility you’ve chosen: anyone, people with password, and people I choose.

Public.

Public is just what it sounds like: a gallery visible to everyone visiting your website, as well as to search engines like Google.

If you want your public galleries to be found faster, enter a gallery description and meta keywords and ensure your Google Search and SmugMug Search visibility settings are set to Yes.

Pair this visibility setting with access set to Anyone to get the most exposure possible for your site and galleries.

‍Unlisted (anyone with the link).

This setting makes your galleries accessible only to anyone who has the link, and they aren’t indexed by search engines. Galleries with this setting won’t be visible to people browsing your site, but you'll be able to see them whenever you're logged in as the site owner. Additionally, you'll see a banner at the top of these galleries when you’re logged in to let you know they aren’t available to the general public:

The best part is you can share these galleries directly with friends and family because anyone with the gallery link can browse the photos inside. Each gallery URL contains a randomly generated “key” for additional security. 

When you share the link, be sure to copy all the letters in the URL. They may look like a random jumble (Example: n-fSzMC), but they're literally the key to ensuring your guests can get into your hidden gallery. Links to Unlisted galleries won't work without them. 

An important note: There’s a certain amount of trust required in the people you share the link with. You no longer have control over the security of the gallery if a recipient of the URL shares it.

For highly sensitive content, you may want to consider archiving a gallery as soon as a client has finished viewing it. You can generate a gallery download from Private galleries and send those files to your client if they do request later access.

Private (only me).

Private means only you, the account owner, will be able to see the gallery and images inside it. Even if you share a link with someone, they'll see a "Page Not Found" error. Galleries set to Private won't be found by search engines, nor will they appear in SmugMug's sitewide search (unless you're logged in and doing the search yourself).

When browsing the gallery, you won't see the "key" in the URL that we described above, but you will see a similar banner stating the gallery is accessible only to you, the logged-in site owner.

Private galleries are great for you but less so for friends or clients; don't choose this option if you want someone else to enjoy your photos. Additionally, don't share photos from Private galleries to forums and blogs because they won't work.

Anyone.

This access setting does what it says on the tin: allows access to anyone and everyone browsing your site. Galleries with this setting will show up for anyone casually scrolling through your site to browse photos. If you want your work to be discovered, this is the setting for you.

Password.

You can add a password to any gallery on your site to ensure only authorized guests see your photos. When you do this to a public gallery, that gallery will no longer be available via search engines like Google. It will, however, continue to show publicly on your website's Browse page and in the folder containing the gallery.

People who visit your password-protected galleries will be prompted to enter the password and be shown a password hint if you've included one. 

Here are a few best practices for strong password security:

1. DO use a STRONG password. At least fourteen characters, not a word found in the dictionary, and a string of unrelated words or parts of words—or a combination of letters, numerals, and symbols. 
2. DO NOT use the client's name, the name of the gallery, birthdays, or other easy-to-remember and easy-to-guess phrases for the password. 
3. DO NOT use a password hint on galleries that absolutely require privacy. If your client can guess based on the hint, other people can, too.

People I choose.

Skip the password hurdle while still locking down galleries for only people you want to allow in by using private sharing. This access option creates a unique invitation you send to only the people you choose. And each invite has a unique redemption token. Once your recipient uses the invite, no one else can—even if your guest forwards the invitation email on to someone else.

‍What about privacy at the folder and page level?

Folders and pages have the same privacy options galleries do. By default, new galleries you create will inherit the parent folder's privacy settings, but you can change this for specific galleries if you wish.

Tip: Change the privacy setting on a folder to change the privacy setting on all the galleries within it. Great for hiding (or revealing) entire categories on your site.

With these privacy settings, you can mix and match to create exactly the right browsing experience for your visitors—and the right security for yourself. Dial it in on a gallery-by-gallery basis for the ultimate, fine-grain control over your photos and videos, or group galleries into different folders that have their own security settings. Allow all galleries within a folder to inherit that folder’s security setting, or tweak a few galleries within that folder to have their own security rules. Whatever your choice, SmugMug’s got your privacy covered.