Password, email gate, or neither
Which kind of gallery protection to use, and what each one costs you.
Three levels of protection, and the right one depends on how private the shoot is and how much friction the client will tolerate.
| Setting | Client experience | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| No protection | Opens straight from the link | Portfolio-ish deliveries, public events, anything you'd happily show a stranger |
| Email gate | Enters their email once, then straight in | Most client work — light friction, and you learn who's actually looking |
| Password | Must have the password you gave them | Weddings, newborn, boudoir — anything genuinely private |
The email gate
The gate asks for an email address before showing the photos. It isn't real security — anyone with the link can type any address — but it tells you who is looking and how often, and it means family members forwarding the link show up as separate visitors in your stats rather than as one anonymous blur.
Passwords
A password is genuine protection: without it the photos aren't served at all. The cost is that clients lose passwords, and every lost password is an email to you. Use them where the shoot warrants it, and don't reuse one across clients.
Changing a gallery's password locks out anyone already using the old one, including family your client shared it with. Expect a round of “it stopped working” messages if you change it after delivery.
Expiry
You can set a date after which the gallery stops opening. It's a useful nudge for clients who sit on a delivery for months, and it keeps old shoots from lingering publicly. Expiry doesn't delete anything — extend the date or clear it and the gallery is back.
If you use expiry, say so in the delivery email. A gallery that silently stops working reads as a fault, and you'll hear about it.