How do you password-protect an online photography gallery?

Choose the series you want to share, arrange it in a gallery, and give it enough context for the people opening the link. Password protection is set per gallery.

Public, unlisted, password-protected, and unpublished are not interchangeable. Match the setting to the consequence if a link travels beyond the intended group.

Use a protected ISO100 gallery when you want someone to spend time with a selected sequence. It works well for sharing a project with collaborators or showing family photographs to a small group.

Use a title and introduction that make sense to those viewers, then send the gallery’s direct link. They can enter the password and see the selection you prepared for them.

You can also offer individual photos or the whole gallery as free downloads, choosing full-resolution JPEGs or original uploads. For proofing decisions, annotations, or individual viewer accounts, use a service with those tools.

In Gallery details → Downloads, choose Free, the file format, and a license to offer the whole gallery as one or more ZIP files. Use a photo’s Downloads tab for individual files.

Save, preview, and publish before sharing. Download settings and gallery access are separate controls; turning on a gallery bundle does not turn on individual downloads.

Use a unique password that is easy for the intended viewers to enter but difficult to guess. A short sequence of unrelated words is usually more usable than a name, event date, or reused account password.

Avoid details someone could find in a profile, such as surnames or event dates, and never reuse your email or Studio password. Give each sensitive gallery its own passphrase and keep it in a password manager.

Change it if it travels beyond the intended group. That lets you continue sharing the gallery with a fresh password when needed.

For routine low-risk sharing, a direct message containing both may be enough. When the work is more sensitive, send the link and password through separate channels. You might send the link by email and the password by text or voice.

Tell people what they are opening, whether they may forward access, and when you would like feedback. Use the direct gallery link and test it in a private browser window before sending it.

Keep the password out of the public title, URL, and social posts. The invitation should make access easy for the intended viewers without publishing the password alongside the gallery.

Before sharing, read the captions and look through the sequence once as your viewer will. Include photographs and personal details that belong in this particular conversation.

Make sure the people pictured are comfortable with that audience and remove location details that do not belong in the conversation. When access is no longer needed, change the password or make the gallery Draft, then publish.

ISO100 omits password-protected galleries from the portfolio index and marks them not to be indexed by search engines. A photo used only in protected galleries has no standalone page that bypasses the gate. A photo also published in an open gallery remains visible there.

Recipients can still forward the password or save what they see. Use a protected gallery for selected sharing, and reserve highly sensitive material for a system with the access controls it requires.