The wedding was Saturday. Forty people took photos, and they are now spread across forty phones. A few land in a group chat, compressed. Most never leave the camera roll. A week later, someone asks, "Did anyone get a picture of the first dance?"
Group albums fix that with one link. You turn on an invite link for an album, drop it in the group chat or show its QR code at the party, and everyone who opens it can join and add their photos to the same album. When the album goes quiet, 5AM makes a short reel from everyone's photos and puts it in front of you. You watch it, and with one tap it goes to everyone who was there.
One link, everyone's photos
Every album you own can have an invite link. Anyone who opens it can join the album and add their own photos and videos. There is no approval step and no list of email addresses to type: the link is the invitation.
It works however the group already talks:
- Paste it into WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack or an email. The preview shows the album's name and cover and who invited them, so nobody wonders what they are tapping.
- Show the QR code. Put it on a phone at the welcome table, on a slide at the offsite, or print it on the back of the menu.
- Share it from your phone with the share sheet, straight from the album.
Joining through a link is always free, even if you charge for access when you share with someone by email.
What your guests see
Your guests do not need an account to look first. The invite page shows the album's cover, its name, who invited them, how many photos and people are already in it, and a few of the latest photos. Then Sign in to join takes them in. Signing up takes one step with Google or Apple.
On a phone the page puts the app first. On an iPhone they can get the 5AM app from the App Store, or open the invite in the app if they already have it. On Android a single button opens the app, or installs it and then opens the invite. If they would rather not install anything, Continue in browser works just as well.
Once they join, the album is in their library, and they can add photos to it from the web, the iPhone app or the Android app.
How to set it up
1. Open the album you want to share. It can be a new album for the event or one you already have.
2. Open its sharing settings. On the web that is the album's Share settings; in the apps, Share Album from the album's menu. Sharing is laid out in three parts:
- Share with people: invite specific people by email. Choose whether they can view the album or add their own photos, and charge for access if you like.
- Share with a group: the invite link, for everyone at once.
- Share a public link: a view-only link anyone can open. Nobody can add photos through it.
3. Turn on the Invite link under Share with a group, then copy it, share it or show the QR code. The card also shows how many people have joined through it.
You stay in charge
An open link is meant to be easy, so the controls for when something goes wrong are simple too:
- Turn the link off and nobody new can join with it. Everyone who joined stays.
- Reset the link to make a new one. The old link stops working, and everyone who already joined stays in the album.
- Remove someone. If they added photos, those photos move into a new album in their own library, so they keep their pictures and your album is back to the way you want it. They cannot rejoin with the invite link. If you change your mind later, share the album with them by email.
Everyone who joined through the link is marked Joined with link in the album's People with access list, so you can tell them apart from the people you invited by email. When someone joins, you get a notification.
The event reel
A full album is great, but nobody scrolls through 300 photos twice. So when the album goes quiet, 5AM makes something people actually forward: an event reel.
When it happens. 5AM starts an event reel for an album on its own when all of these are true:
- at least three people are in the album (you and two others);
- at least two people have added photos;
- there are at least eight photos;
- nobody has added a photo for a day, and the last photo arrived within the past two weeks.
You can also start one yourself at any time with Make event reel now, on the Event reel card under Share with a group. That needs at least three photos.
What goes in. Up to 20 photos, and everyone who added photos is in it, not only the person with the most pictures. Each person's photos are picked from across their part of the day, then everything is put in the order it happened. Reel Studio plans the story, writes a caption for each scene and composes a music track to fit, then renders a vertical video.
Only you see it first. When the reel is ready, you get a notification and an email: "Your event reel is ready." Open it and you will see Send to everyone, with the number of people it will reach. Until you tap it, nobody else can see the reel. If you want to change a caption or the order first, you can edit it in Reel Studio like any other reel. Not now puts it aside for later, and Don't send it sets it aside for good. Nobody is told either way.
Sending it. One tap sends a notification and an email to everyone in the album, with a link to watch the reel. The video is also added to the album itself, next to the photos it came from.
It stays with the group. An event reel holds other people's photos, so it can never be published to the public Reel feed. Anyone it was sent to can share the link onward, the way they would share any video from a friend.
Make your own. The reel's page has a Remake button. When someone new to 5AM uses it to make their first reel, you both get 20 AI credits: the same referral reward as any shared reel. To count as new, their account must be less than 7 days old and must not have made a reel yet.
Pricing
- Group albums and invite links are included on every plan, Free included. Joining is always free.
- Photos count toward the storage of the person who uploads them. A guest's photos use the guest's storage, not yours.
- An event reel uses your AI credits, like any reel you make in Reel Studio. Planning and the composed music use your Gemini access: your plan's AI credits, or your own Gemini key if you have added one. The render is always charged in AI credits: 4 credits plus 0.4 credits per second of finished reel, so a 25-second event reel costs 14 credits. If a render fails, the credits are refunded. If you run out of credits, the reel waits, and you get one notification so you can top up and tap Try again.
See pricing for each plan's AI credit allowance.
Practical details
- Where: the web, the iPhone app and the Android app. Invite links open the app when it is installed.
- Invite page preview: the album's name, its cover, who invited you, the counts and up to 6 of the latest photos.
- Event reels: up to 20 photos, vertical 1080x1920, with composed music. Photos only for now; videos in the album are not used yet.
- Automatic event reels: one per album. You can make more yourself with Make event reel now.
- Photos with problems (for example, an upload that never finished) are left out, and others are picked in their place.
Get started
Make an album for your next event, turn on its invite link and put the QR code where people will see it. When the photos stop coming in, watch the reel 5AM makes from them and send it back to everyone who was there.
Open your albums to get started.
