Seven states, one closing date, and a week of warning
Nothing about a collection ends by surprise. It moves through states a guest can read on the page, it tells you the deletion date before it is set, and the files leave on a day printed on your dashboard from the first.
Anybody who has ever relied on a shared cloud account knows the failure: a link that stops working with no notice, or a folder that quietly keeps everything forever and charges you for it in the third year. A collection does neither, and the difference is that the dates are stated before you need them.
The seven states
- Draft
- Created, no package chosen. A guest who arrives reads that this collection is not open yet. Nothing is charged, and the printed card is not wasted — the same address opens the upload page the moment the collection does.
- Awaiting payment
- An invoice is reserved. The link still does not accept files, which is the reason to reserve a package with a day or two in hand rather than on the morning of the event.
- Open
- Guests upload; the gallery, the guestbook and the room screen are live. This is the state you are in for the event itself and for the whole of the retention period.
- Complete
- The celebration has passed. The gallery reads normally, and nothing new is expected — but the files are still there, and the download still works.
- On hold
- Suspended from our side. Guests are told the collection is on hold, and it clears once the reason is settled — normally an unpaid invoice or a question about a single file.
- Expired
- The retention period ran out. Uploads are refused and deletion is scheduled; the gallery keeps reading until the files go.
- Archived
- About a month past expiry the collection leaves your dashboard. By then the files are long gone from the site, and what you have is what you downloaded.
The clock starts when the collection opens
Not on the day of the event, and not on the day you paid. A collection opened a fortnight before a wedding loses those fourteen days of retention, which is a small thing and worth knowing before you open one in March for a wedding in September. A collection that has been open a while and has an event still to come is a normal sight in the dashboard; one that opened the day before the event is a better one.
The length itself comes from the package: a week, six months, a year, two years. Extra time can be bought, and it starts when the included period ends rather than on the day you pay for it — so a collection that will be archived in three weeks gains three weeks plus six months, not six months from today.
What the warning mail says
About a week before the end you get a mail with your collection's name in the subject line and three dates in the body: the day it stops taking uploads, the day the gallery stays readable until, and the day the files are deleted. It is the only message in the whole product that has a deadline in it, which is why it cannot be switched off — payment, receipt, expiry and deletion mail are never silenced by any preference.
- Download the whole collection, not the files you have decided you want
- Copy the archive somewhere that is not the same laptop, and check the copy opens
- Send the guestbook text a copy of itself if the words matter — they come out with the archive, but a plain text file is what a parent actually reads
- Tell the people who sent photographs what the closing date is, so nobody tries to add the good one from the wrong device in month seven
- Keep the download link from the closing mail; it is the last thing that reaches the files
A ZIP built after the deletion date is empty. That is not a bug and there is no way to recover from it — the files are gone from the site, not hidden from you.
Files are deleted the day after uploads close
It cannot be undone afterwards — not by you and not by us. The gap between the closing date and the deletion date is short on purpose: a collection that keeps other people's photographs past its own advertised end is a collection whose promise was never real.
How to take the archiveWhat happens to the address afterwards
Before the date
Everything works
The card on the table opens the collection. Guests upload, browse, and leave messages. Nothing about the address is special or expiring.
Uploads closed
The page still reads
A guest who finds the card months later is told uploads have closed and is shown what came in. It is not a broken link and not an error.
Files deleted
The page says so
The collection is empty and the page explains that the period ended. The photographs are on the host's machine, and there is no copy on the site to serve.
Archived
It leaves your dashboard
About a month after expiry the record goes, so an account does not fill up with evenings from three years ago. A deleted paid collection also frees its place for another one.
Ending questions
Can I extend the time rather than download?
Yes, while the collection is still open: six or twelve extra months, priced once, starting when the included period ends. Once the files are deleted there is nothing to extend.
What if I forget and the date passes?
You get a mail about a week ahead, with three dates in it, and the dashboard shows the closing date the whole time. If the date genuinely passed, the files are gone and the honest answer is that the host's own copy is the archive — which is why the download is worth doing the morning after rather than in month five.
Can I delete the collection early?
Yes. It asks you to type the name back, and mistyping it does nothing. Deleting removes the collection, every photograph and video, every guestbook message and the stored files at once; on a paid package it also frees the place for another collection.
Do guests lose their own photographs?
No. What a guest sent left their phone as a copy, not a move — the file is still in their camera roll. What they lose access to is everybody else's, which is why the gallery is worth visiting before the date.
Does the QR code stop working?
It never changes and never stops resolving. It carries the address, and the page it opens tells the truth about the state of the collection for as long as the address exists.
A stated end date is the part that makes this trustworthy
Every collection knows when it closes, tells its host a week before, and hands the files back to you while they are still there.
How it works
From the invitation to the morning after
Nothing here needs an app, an account or a card. Guests give a name once and send their files.
Something this page does not answer? Write to support@candidphotos.myjoyfullday.com.