Using a group chat to collect event photos
It is the default, and for a small gathering it is genuinely fine. It starts to hurt when the guest list grows, when you want the photos at full quality, or when you would rather not hand everyone your whole phonebook.
Side by side
| What matters | A group chat | Snappio |
|---|---|---|
| Getting people in | You need everyone's number, and they get everyone else's. | Guests scan a code. Nobody exchanges a phone number with anyone. |
| Photo quality | Compressed on the way through - noticeably so for printing. | Full-quality originals, kept exactly as they were taken. |
| Finding them later | Scattered between messages, jokes and voice notes. | One gallery, in the order they arrived, nothing else mixed in. |
| Control | Anything posted is seen by everyone, immediately. | You choose what appears, and can review before anything shows. |
| Keeping them | Gone when someone leaves the group or clears their phone. | One download of everything, with captions, for as long as your download window runs. |
When a group chat is the better choice
If you are having ten people round for dinner and they are all already in a chat together, use the chat. There is nothing to set up, everyone is there, and the quality loss will not matter for photos nobody is going to print. The case for anything else starts at roughly the point where you would have to create a new group.
Where Snappio is different
Common questions
Can I use both?
Plenty of people do - the chat for the conversation, a photo link for the photos. Sharing the link in the group chat is the most common way people get their guests started.
What if my guests are not on the same messaging app?
That is exactly the case this handles badly. A photo link opens in any phone's browser, so it does not matter what anyone has installed.
Try it for your event
Small events are free, so you can see how it works before you commit to anything.
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