Collect photos from a group, straight into your Drive
One link in the group chat. Everyone picks the photos and videos they took, and every original lands in a folder inside your own Google Drive. No app to install, no account to make, nothing for anyone to delete.
The best way to collect photos from a group is one link everyone can use. To collect photos from an event, you paste it wherever the group already talks, each person picks photos and videos from their own camera roll, and everything arrives at full resolution in a folder inside your Google Drive. Nothing to install, no account to make, and nothing for anyone to browse or delete.
Why the group chat never gives you the photos
Collecting photos from multiple people after an event should be the easy part — the photos exist, they are just scattered across nine phones. WhatsApp, Messenger, and iMessage groups will move them, but they shrink what passes through, and by the following week the good ones are a thousand messages up the thread.
The usual fixes each ask for something the group will not do: AirDrop needs everyone on an iPhone in the same room, “send me your photos” gets answered by two people out of nine, and a shared album asks everyone for a Google account and lets any of them delete. One file request link asks for none of that — it is a page, they tap it, they send.
Send them in the group chatCompressed on the way, and buried by tomorrow
AirDrop them overiPhone to iPhone, standing in the same room
"Send me your photos"Answered by two people out of nine
Start a shared albumEveryone needs an account, everyone can delete
Paste one link in the chatEveryone uploads from their own phone, originals intact
How to collect photos from a group
1Create the upload link
Sign in with your Google account and create an upload link for the trip, the party, or the reunion. A folder for it appears in your Drive at the same time.
2Set it to images and video, and turn on the name field
Limit the file types to images and video so the link only takes what it is for, and switch on the built-in name field so every upload arrives with a name attached.
3Drop the link in the group chat
Paste it wherever the group already talks — WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, email. There is nothing to explain and nothing for anyone to install.
4Everyone uploads from their own phone
Each person picks photos and videos from their camera roll and sends them. With a subfolder per submission, every person's files land in a folder of their own inside yours.
What each person sees on their phone
One page, and only one page. No sign-up screen, no download prompt, no app store detour, no gallery to get lost in. Whatever you set as the headline is at the top, and underneath it a button that opens the phone's own photo picker.
The native camera roll picker, where they can select as many photos and videos at once as they like.
A progress bar per file, so it is obvious the upload is happening and when it is finished.
Large videos go up in parts rather than as one fragile transfer, and the move into your Drive resumes on its own if it is interrupted.
A name field, if you turn it on, so you know whose photos these are without playing guess-the-thumbnail.
Any question you added — "Which day?", "Which car were you in?" — answered in a line of text before they send.
Nothing else. No feed of everyone else's uploads, no way to delete what anyone has already sent.
Where the photos end up
In your Google Drive, in a folder created for this link, owned by you from the moment the file arrives. There is no vendor gallery holding the originals and no export step weeks later — the photos are simply in your Drive, next to everything else you keep there.
Full-resolution originals. The file that leaves the phone is the file that lands in your Drive, byte for byte.
Videos as well as photos, up to 5 GB per file — enough for the whole clip, not a compressed copy of it.
A subfolder per person, if you switch it on, named after them and the moment they uploaded.
Anything you asked at upload time, recorded with the submission, so a name or a day stays attached to the files.
An email to you when a submission finishes, so you can watch the folder fill without sitting in the dashboard.
Collecting pictures this way, compared with a shared album, a group chat, or a photo sharing app
Every option here works in the sense that files move. They differ in what arrives, who owns it, and how much you have to ask of the group.
Drive File RequestNative
Shared Google Photos album
The group chat
WeTransfer
AirDrop
Photo sharing app
Nothing to install
Yes
Mostly
Yes
Yes
Yes, but iPhone only
No
No account needed to send
Yes
No
Yes
The sender verifies an email
Yes
Sometimes
Photos land in
Your Google Drive
A Google Photos album
The chat thread
A download link
The other phone, in the room
The vendor's cloud
Full-resolution originals
Yes
Depends on each person's Photos setting
Compressed by default
Yes
Yes
Often compressed
Video ceiling
5 GB per file
The sender's own storage
Small, and compressed
Plan-dependent
The receiving phone's storage
Usually capped per clip
One link for the whole group
Yes
Yes
Yes
One transfer at a time
One phone at a time
Yes
You can tell whose photos are whose
Yes, name field and subfolders
Yes
Roughly
Only if they say
Yes
Yes
Anyone can delete what arrived
No
Yes, any member
Yes, the sender
The link expires
No
Sometimes
Still there in a year
Yes, they are in your Drive
Yes
No
No, links expire
Yes, on your phone
Until the plan ends
Everyone can browse the photos
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Cost
$10 a month, cancel after
Free
Free
Free tier
Free
Free or per event
The honest version of the trade: a photo sharing app for groups gives everyone something to look at — a gallery the whole trip can scroll on the flight home. This does not, and is not trying to. There is no viewer-facing album, no slideshow, and no gallery link to send round. What you get instead is every original in your own storage, at full quality, with nobody able to remove anything.
A shared Google Photos album is the genuinely free option and it is fine, right up to the two points where it isn't: every contributor needs a Google account and has to be signed in, and everyone who joins can remove things. That is the same sign-in wall Google Forms puts in front of file uploads. The group chat has the opposite problem — nobody has to sign in, but the photos arrive compressed and slide out of view by the next day.
Setting the link up before you send it
Five minutes of setup is the difference between a folder of photos and a folder of mysteries. The settings worth thinking about, in the order they matter:
01Turn on the name field. It is a built-in toggle, not something you have to build, and it names the subfolder as well as telling you who sent what.
02Set the expiry two to four weeks after the event. Long enough for the person who meant to do it on the night, short enough that the link is not still open a year later.
03Limit the file types to images and video, so the link only accepts what it is for.
04Leave the file count unlimited and set the size limit high — phone video is far bigger than anyone expects.
05Turn on a subfolder for every submission, so nine people give you nine folders instead of one pile of IMG_4471.
06Add one custom question if the event had parts worth separating. "Which day?" on a four-day trip takes three seconds to answer and saves you an evening of sorting.
07Open the link on your own phone before you send it. It takes a minute and it is the only real test.
Basics
Link nameQ3 documents
Page password
Uploader whitelist
name@example.com@company.com | 1234
Expiry date30 Sep 2026, 17:00
Upload limits
Max file size (MB)200
Max number of files20
Allowed file types
PDFsDocumentsImagesSpreadsheets
The same link at a wedding
A wedding is this page's setup with a QR code instead of a group chat: the link goes on the table cards, guests point a camera at it, and the photos land in the same kind of Drive folder. If that is the event you are collecting for, the wedding version of this page covers what to print and what to put on the sign.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to collect photos from a group?
One upload link that everyone can use from their own phone, sent wherever the group already talks — the same answer whether you are gathering photos from a group after a trip or collecting pictures from friends after a party. It beats asking for photos individually because nobody has to install anything, sign in, or send you files one at a time — and it beats the group chat because the originals arrive uncompressed and land somewhere you own rather than scrolling out of sight. With a name field switched on, you also know whose photos are whose without asking.
Is there an app where multiple people can upload photos?
There are several, and every photo gathering app asks the group to install something. This is the version without an app: you create one link, everyone opens it in the browser their phone already has, and their photos and videos upload into your Google Drive. The people uploading never make an account. The trade is that there is no shared gallery for them to browse afterwards — the files go to you, not to a feed.
How do I collect photos from a group for free?
A shared Google Photos album is the genuinely free route, at the cost of every contributor needing a Google account and being able to delete from it. Here, there is a 24-hour free trial with no card, which is enough to build the link and test it, but trial links pause after 24 hours — so for a real event take Pro at $10 a month for the month around it and cancel afterwards. The photos stay in your Drive either way.
Do people need a Google account?
No. Only you do, because the files land in your Google Drive. Everyone uploading opens a normal web page, picks photos from their camera roll, and sends them — no account, no app, and no password unless you choose to set one on the link.
Can people see each other's photos?
No. Each person sees an upload page and nothing else — no album, no feed, no folder listing, and no way to remove anything that has already arrived. If what you want is a gallery everyone can browse, a shared album is the better fit; this is for getting the originals into your own hands.
How big can the videos be?
Up to 5 GB per file, and you set the ceiling per link. Large files upload in parts rather than as one long transfer, and the move into your Drive resumes by itself if a connection drops — which matters when nine people are uploading from a hotel wifi.
How long does the link stay open?
As long as you want. Set an expiry date when you create the link and it closes itself on that date; two to four weeks after the event is the usual choice. You can also close it by hand at any point, and everything already delivered stays in your Drive.
Send the link while everyone still remembers
A link, a group chat, and a folder in your own Google Drive waiting for the photos.
