How to make a shared album on iPhone

Before you start

Shared Albums is an iCloud feature, so it needs two things: your iPhone signed in to iCloud, and the feature switched on. It is usually on already; to check, go to Settings, tap your name, tap iCloud, tap Photos under Saved to iCloud, and make sure Shared Albums is on. Everyone you invite needs their own Apple Account to participate fully (there is a browser option for everyone else, covered below).

Create the album (iOS 26 and 18)

1. Open Photos and find Shared Albums

   In iOS 26, tap Collections and scroll down to Shared Albums. In iOS 18, scroll down the main view to Shared Albums.

2. Start a new album

   Tap Shared Albums, then tap the Add button (iOS 26) or Create (iOS 18).

3. Name it and pick photos

   Give the album a name and choose some photos or videos to start it with.

4. Invite people

   Pick people from your contacts, or type an email address or iMessage phone number. Tap Done, then Create.

Invitees get a notification and can accept from it. When you add new photos later, everyone in the album gets notified automatically.

On iOS 17 or earlier

1. Open the Albums tab

   In Photos, go to Albums and tap the Add button.

2. Choose New Shared Album

   Tap New Shared Album, name it, and tap Next.

3. Invite and create

   Choose people from contacts or enter an email or iMessage number, then tap Create.

Adding photos, and letting others add

To add from anywhere in Photos: select the photos, tap the Share button, tap Add to Shared Album, choose the album, and tap Post. With the album open, the Add button does the same thing.

If people you invited cannot add their own photos, the album-level switch is off. Open the album, tap the More button, tap the album name, and check Participants Can Add Photos (on iOS 17 or earlier this lives in Shared Album Details as Subscribers Can Post). As the owner you can delete anything in the album; participants can delete what they personally added.

Sharing with Android and non-Apple friends

This is the first place shared albums pinch. There is no Android app and no sign-in path for non-Apple people; what Apple offers instead is Public Website: open the album, tap the More button, tap Shared Album Details, and turn it on. The album's photos publish to an icloud.com link that anyone with the link can open in a browser.

Two things to understand about that link. First, it is view-only: your Android relatives can look, but they cannot post their photos into the album, so a mixed-device family ends up with a one-way gallery instead of a shared one. Second, it is a public link: anyone who has the URL can open it, no sign-in asked. For an album of kids' photos, think before flipping that switch, and if you do share it, share it carefully.

The limits Apple doesn't surface

None of this appears in the setup flow, all of it is in Apple's Shared Albums documentation, and the quality part surprises almost everyone:

• Photos are compressed to 2,048 pixels on the long edge (panoramas get up to 5,400). A current iPhone captures several times that; the copy that lands in the shared album is a fraction of the original. Fine on a phone screen, visibly soft printed or on a TV.
• Videos are delivered at up to 720p and fifteen minutes. Your 4K video of the recital arrives at roughly one ninth of the resolution you shot.
• Each album holds 5,000 photos and videos. Plenty for a trip; a family album posting daily hits it in a few years, and then it is delete-or-start-over.
• Saving from the album saves the small copy. Apple's own line is that downloaded content "may not contain the same information as the original". If grandparents are saving photos to keep, they are keeping the compressed versions.
• Deleting the album deletes everything, everywhere, permanently, including the public website if you enabled it. Anything people saved to their own libraries first survives.
• The genuine upside: none of it counts against iCloud storage. Shared album content lives in iCloud for free, which is why the compression exists and why, for casual sharing, the feature is honestly a good deal.

Shared album vs iCloud Shared Photo Library

Apple ships a second, newer sharing feature with a confusingly similar name. iCloud Shared Photo Library is not an album: it is a merged library for you plus up to five other people, where photos you contribute move out of your personal library into the common one, everyone can add and edit and delete, and the whole thing runs on the creator's iCloud storage. It suits couples and households merging their camera rolls. A shared album is the lighter tool: a pool of compressed copies you invite people to look at and add to. If you want "our family's photos, together, at full quality" inside Apple's world, the Shared Library is the feature you are looking for, storage bill and all.

If the limits are the problem

For a vacation with iPhone friends, a shared album is genuinely the right tool: free, built in, effortless. The people who outgrow it usually hit one of two walls. The quality wall, because everything anyone keeps from the album is a 2,048 pixel copy. Or the audience wall, because the one bridge to non-Apple people is a public, view-only link.

boopr sits on the other side of the first wall. It is a free, invite-only photo app where photos are shared at full quality for every account, nothing is public ever (no link option, no website, no strangers), and if someone screenshots what you shared, you find out. It is on the App Store and Google Play, so unlike a shared album, a mixed iPhone and Android family is fully covered. For a circle that cares about the photos surviving at full quality in a place that stays private, it is exactly the tool.

Common questions

How many photos can a shared album hold? 5,000 photos and videos per album. When it is full, you delete items or start another album.

Do shared albums reduce quality? Yes: photos compress to 2,048 pixels on the long edge (panoramas up to 5,400), videos deliver at up to 720p with a fifteen minute cap. The numbers are Apple's, documented, and easy to miss.

Can Android users see a shared album? Only via the Public Website link, view-only in a browser. They cannot add photos or comments.

Do shared albums use my iCloud storage? No. Shared album content does not count against your storage limit.

Shared album vs iCloud Shared Photo Library? The album is a lightweight pool of compressed copies. The Shared Library merges actual libraries for up to six people on the creator's storage. Moments versus households.

Are shared albums private? Invited people only, until you turn on Public Website. That makes the album an open link: anyone holding the URL can view it, no sign-in. Leave it off for anything sensitive.

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