Viallo is a private photo-sharing app for collecting photos from a group. For any occasion, the organiser creates one album and shares a link or a printed QR code; anyone who receives it can add photos from any browser with no app, no account and no name to type, on iPhone or Android alike. Photos are stored at full resolution, up to 500 MB per file, with no expiry date and no download deadline; you can download the originals at any time. Unlimited people can contribute on every plan including the free one. Hosted in the EU on Cloudflare R2; photos are never used to train AI models. Operated by Zava Solutions LLC.
Everyone took photos. You got about six of them.
One album, one link. The people who were there add their photos straight from their phones - no app, no account, no name to type. You keep the originals at full size, with no expiry date and no download deadline.
- Free to start ·
- No card needed ·
- Full-resolution originals ·
- EU-hosted
How it actually works
Why did my last one fail?You make an album and share one link - or print the QR code. Whoever you send it to taps it, and the albums you picked open in their browser. They choose one, pick photos from their phone and tap once.
No app to install, no account to make, no password to remember, and no name to type.
It works the same on an iPhone and on an Android, in whatever browser they already have. Their photos land in your album at the size they were taken.
One QR code, or one link - wherever these people already are
Share
Create the album and send the link, or print the code. You can set it up weeks ahead - the link works before there's a single photo in the album.
They add
They tap, pick, done. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, nothing to type. Same on iPhone and Android.
You keep
Every photo arrives at full resolution, not a shrunken copy. There's no expiry date and no download deadline, and you can download the originals at any time, at no extra cost.
Paste the link into whatever thread this group is already in, or download the QR as a print-ready PNG and put it wherever they'll be standing. Either way, you pick which albums it opens.
Four things go wrong with shared albums
If you have already tried to do this once, it went wrong in one of these four ways. None of them were your fault, and they have four different causes.
1Nobody can get in.
The album works. The link works. Somewhere between tapping it and picking a photo, the person is asked to become a user - and that's where they stop. They're standing in a kitchen with one hand free, and they are not going to sign up for this.
Here there is no sign-in screen, no name field and no code to type.
2The photos vanish.
Three different things hide under that one complaint. Somebody deleted the shared album, and a shared album is one album everyone is looking at rather than a copy each - so it goes for all of them at once. Or the photos only ever lived inside the shared album, which on an iPhone sits outside the photo library and outside the backup. Or a clock ran out somewhere nobody was looking.
Here nothing counts down: no expiry date and no download deadline.
3Everything comes back soft.
Messaging apps shrink and re-encode every image they carry, so anything that has been through a group chat is a copy of a copy. It looks fine on a phone. You find out at the worst possible moment, which is when somebody wants to print one.
Nothing here is scaled down on the way in, and you download the originals.
4One person is on the wrong phone.
Every group has one. The album goes round, and that person either gets nothing or gets a link they can look at and cannot add to. Then somebody suggests AirDrop, which is Apple-to-Apple and in the same room, and they get nothing again.
This is a web page. Whoever opens it can add photos, on any phone.
Will people actually use it?
Some of them. Not all of them - and anyone who quotes you a percentage is guessing.
The numbers you'll see on other sites - 85%, 90%, 93% - come with no sample size, no date, and no explanation of how they were counted. We're not going to add another one to the pile. What we can tell you is what seems to actually move the number, from people who've done it:
Put the link where the conversation already is.
Paste it into the thread these people are using anyway. A link somewhere new is a link nobody opens, and starting a fresh group to hold the photos loses more people than it gathers.
Ask one person, by name.
A request addressed to everybody is a request addressed to nobody, and the first few photos in an album are what make the rest of them arrive.
Ask again a week later.
The first ask catches whoever happens to be holding their phone; the second catches everyone who meant to and forgot.
This is the part where we're different. With most of these tools the second ask is pointless, because the upload window has already shut - 24 hours on some free plans, a few months on others. Ours doesn't shut. If someone finds three good photos eight months later, they can still add them.
The photo you get back is full resolution, not a shrunken copy
Send a photo through a group chat and it gets shrunk on the way - that's how group chats work, and it's why the photo your friend sent you looks fine on your phone and falls apart the moment you try to print it.
Photos uploaded to Viallo keep their full resolution - up to 500 MB each, without the group-chat shrinking that turns a 24-megapixel photo into something that falls apart in print. (Photos from an iPhone are saved as high-quality JPEGs; everything else is kept as it arrived.) When you come back to make the book you keep meaning to make, they'll still be big enough.
As of 2026, Apple's iCloud Shared Albums shrink photos to 2,048 pixels on the long edge - about 3 megapixels out of the 24 a modern phone shoots. Apple has said this changes in iOS 27.
The other ways to do this
The group chat
- What it costs
- Free
- What happens to the photos
- Compressed on the way in, and scrolled past within a week
AirDrop
- What it costs
- Free
- What happens to the photos
- Nothing shrunk - but only between Apple devices, and only in the same room. The person on Android gets nothing
Google Photos shared album
- What it costs
- Free - counts against the 15 GB you share with Gmail and Drive
- What happens to the photos
- Full size, no clock. Whether the people you send the link to can add photos is a setting on the album - Google calls it Collaborate
An iPhone shared album
- What it costs
- Free
- What happens to the photos
- No clock - but as of 2026 photos are capped at 2,048 pixels on the long edge, about 3 megapixels of the 24 a modern phone shoots
A per-event app
- What it costs
- $39 to $119 for the one event
- What happens to the photos
- Full size - then a clock. Most lock or delete the gallery at 12 months; the ceiling in the category is 24
Viallo
- What it costs
- $5.99/month or $59/year - your whole account, not one event
- What happens to the photos
- Full size. No expiry date and no download deadline
| Option | What it costs | What happens to the photos |
|---|---|---|
| The group chat | Free | Compressed on the way in, and scrolled past within a week |
| AirDrop | Free | Nothing shrunk - but only between Apple devices, and only in the same room. The person on Android gets nothing |
| Google Photos shared album | Free - counts against the 15 GB you share with Gmail and Drive | Full size, no clock. Whether the people you send the link to can add photos is a setting on the album - Google calls it Collaborate |
| An iPhone shared album | Free | No clock - but as of 2026 photos are capped at 2,048 pixels on the long edge, about 3 megapixels of the 24 a modern phone shoots |
| A per-event app | $39 to $119 for the one event | Full size - then a clock. Most lock or delete the gallery at 12 months; the ceiling in the category is 24 |
| Viallo | $5.99/month or $59/year - your whole account, not one event | Full size. No expiry date and no download deadline |
This is where the reviews would go
On a page like this one, the space under the comparison table holds a star average and a review count. We do not have numbers whose source we can show you, so there are none here, and there is no participation figure either.
What is above this line is either a published limit from the company it belongs to, dated where the date matters, or something you can check for yourself the first time you send a link to somebody.
Who can see it
Only the people you give the link to. Albums aren't public, aren't listed, and aren't indexed by search engines. Anyone with the upload link can add photos - that's the part that makes it work without accounts - and you decide separately who gets a link to view. You can switch any link off at any time, and the photos stay.
The albums you didn't pick aren't reachable from that link - not by browsing, not by guessing an address.
Everything is hosted in the EU. We don't train AI models on anyone's photos.
What it costs
Free
2 albums, 200 photos, 10 GB
Guests can add photos on the free plan, and there's no limit on how many people contribute, on any plan.
One afternoon, or a set of photos from two or three people, fits inside the free plan's 200; a wedding or a two-week trip runs well past that and needs Plus.
Plus
$5.99 a month, or $59 for the year
20 albums, 5,000 photos, 200 GB
Pro
$14.99 a month, or $149 for the year
unlimited albums and photos, up to 1 TB of storage
Plus isn't an event package - it's your account. The same $59 covers this occasion and every one after it.
Create your album - freeWhat are you collecting photos from?
The album works the same either way - one link, nothing to sign in to, full size. These pages just answer the questions that come with the occasion.
- A weddingThe best ones are still on your guests' phones.
- A birthday or a partyEveryone had their phone out. You got three of the photos.
- A family get-togetherThe relatives with the best photos are the ones who will never make an account.
- A funeral or a memorialPhotographs of someone, gathered from the people who knew them.
- A group tripSix of you shot the same trip on six phones.
Something else, or nothing in particular? It is the same link either way.
Create your album - freeQuestions people ask
Do people need to download an app?
No. They tap the link, or point their phone camera at the code, and a web page opens. They pick photos from their phone and tap once. No app, no account, no password, nothing to sign up for - and it works the same on iPhone and Android, which is the bit that catches people out with iCloud shared albums, where adding a photo still means signing in with an Apple Account.
What about the people who aren't good with technology?
That's the case this is built for. There's no login screen, which is where most of these things fall over - someone scans a code, hits a Google or Apple sign-in wall, and gives up. Here the link opens straight onto the albums you picked, and adding a photo is one tap.
How long do we keep the photos?
There's no expiry date and no download deadline - we don't run a clock on them the way the per-event tools do, where you get 12 months and then renew. One limit is worth knowing: if your account goes over what your plan holds, the oldest photos are hidden a few days later rather than deleted, and they come back, up to what your plan then holds, if you subscribe again within 30 days. You can download your originals at full resolution any time, at no extra cost - one at a time, or as a multi-select zip. On a phone, a very large batch has to come down in a few goes rather than one.
Who can see the album?
Only the people you give a link to. Albums aren't public, aren't listed and aren't indexed by search engines. Anyone with the upload link can add photos; you decide separately who gets a link to view. You can switch any link off at any time, and the photos stay.
Can someone add a photo we don't want in there?
Anyone with the link can add photos - that's what makes it work without accounts. You can delete anything from your album, and you can switch the upload link off entirely once the occasion is over.
Can people upload video?
Photos only. If someone films the speeches, they'll need to send those another way.
How many photos will we actually get?
It varies a lot - see the section above. Where you put the link, and asking a second time a week later, seem to make more difference than anything else.
What does it cost?
Free to start. See the plans above - and note that Plus covers your whole account, not one occasion.
Apple is rebuilding shared albums. Should I wait?
Apple has said that in iOS 27, shared albums will keep photos at their original size, and that people on Android and Windows will be able to add to them. That is a real improvement and worth knowing about. It has not shipped yet, so we are not going to describe how it will behave beyond what Apple itself has said. What is true today, as of 2026: an iPhone shared album reduces photos to 2,048 pixels on the long edge, and adding a photo to one means signing in with an Apple Account. Here there is nothing to sign in to and nothing counting down.
Why do photos disappear from a shared album?
Usually one of three things. Somebody deleted the album, and a shared album is one album everyone is looking at rather than a copy each, so Apple's own guidance is that deleting it removes it from every subscriber's devices too. Or the photos only ever lived inside the shared album, which on an iPhone sits outside your photo library and outside your backup, so when the person who added them takes them out there is nothing left behind. Or a clock ran out - Google, for instance, may remove photos after two years of not opening Google Photos, with at least three months of warning by email. Here there is no expiry date and no download deadline.
Why do shared album photos come out blurry?
Two different things get blamed on the same word. Messaging apps shrink and re-encode every image they carry, so anything that has been through a group chat is already a copy of a copy. And as of 2026, an iPhone shared album reduces photos to 2,048 pixels on the long edge, about 3 megapixels of the 24 a current phone shoots - Apple has said that changes with iOS 27. Nothing you collect here is scaled down on the way in, and you can download them at full resolution. (Photos from an iPhone are saved as high-quality JPEGs; everything else is kept as it arrived.)
Can they see my other photos?
No. You pick the albums a link opens, and the albums you didn't pick aren't reachable from that link - not by browsing, not by guessing an address.
One album. One link. Everyone's photos.
Create your album - freeFree to start · No card needed · Full-resolution originals · EU-hosted