Shared Albums on iPhone: privacy and who can see them
Shared Albums are the one Photos sharing feature that is never end-to-end encrypted.
In short
A Shared Album is visible to the people you invite — or, if you share it by link or turn on Public Website, to anyone who has the link. Participants can save photos to their own libraries, and those copies stay even if you delete the album. Shared Albums are not end-to-end encrypted, even with Advanced Data Protection turned on.
Key takeaways
- A link can open an album to people you never invited.
- Copies people saved survive when you delete the album.
- Shared Albums are never end-to-end encrypted.
Shared Albums vs Shared Library
A Shared Album is a single album you share with chosen people — up to 100 — who can view it, react, comment and, if you allow it, add their own photos. It is not the same as an iCloud Shared Photo Library, which shares a whole second library with up to five other people. Shared Albums are turned on in Settings › [your name] › iCloud › Photos › Shared Albums.
Who can see it
On iOS 27, Sharing Options let you choose between People You Choose and Anyone with the Link. Even with People You Choose, someone who gets hold of the link can request access, which you approve or decline. On albums created with iOS 26 or earlier, the Public Website option publishes the album to a web address.
- Anyone who can open the album can save its photos and videos to their own library.
- Photos saved from a shared album stay in that person’s library even if the album is deleted.
- Anyone with a Public Website address can view and download the album’s contents.
Quality and storage
Albums created with iOS 26 or earlier share reduced copies: photos up to 2048 pixels on the long edge, videos up to 15 minutes at up to 720p. Albums created with iOS 27 or later store originals at full resolution, and they count against the owner’s iCloud storage.
Removing people and deleting an album
- Open a shared album you created.
- Tap the Manage Shared Album button (on iOS 26, tap the More button, then the album name).
- Tap the participant, then Remove Participant (Remove Subscriber on iOS 26).
To end the album entirely, open it, tap the More button and choose Delete Shared Album. It disappears from your devices and those of every participant, and from the web if it had a Public Website. Deleting a shared album permanently deletes its photos, so save any you want to keep first. On iOS 27, you can instead make the album temporary, and it is deleted after 30 days.
If you are a participant rather than the owner, you can delete the photos you added and leave the album.
Encryption
Shared Albums don’t support Advanced Data Protection. Their keys are uploaded to Apple’s data centers so that web sharing works, which means the content is protected with standard data protection. Treat anything you post as handed over: you can delete it later, but not the copies people saved.
Before you post
- Check the album’s audience in Sharing Options or Manage Shared Album.
- Send personal photos one-to-one rather than to a large family album.
- Keep photos you never want circulating out of shared albums altogether. Latent has no shared albums or public links: a file leaves the vault only when you share it yourself to another app.