iCloud Photo Sharing to Non-Apple Users

Problem to be solved: You have people with whom you’d like to share photos but they don’t have Apple devices so iCloud Photo Sharing doesn’t work for them.

Solution: Create a shared album and generate a URL through which they can view the images in a web browser

Note – I’m pretty sure this only works from your System Photo Library.

Open Photos

  1. Select an Album (or just start with Photos or All Photos)
  2. Select some photos
  3. Click the Share icon

Select iCloud Photo Sharing from the Share menu

Create New Shared Album…

Name the Shared Album

Then hit Create

Shared Album In Sidebar under Shared

Select your shared album

Click the Little Person Icon

Create a Public Website

When you create this Public Website, if someone can guess the URL your photos would be available publicly.  This is a tradeoff only you can make.

You can add email addresses up above, but only people with Apple addresses will be able to see the album via email.

Copy the Public URL

Either click the url, or copy and paste it into an email

Shared Album Viewed from the Web

This URL will display on any device with a web browser, requiring no login.

Here’s my example: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B04JpT2aKJpzj0q

Tap on any photo.

Slideshow and Download

If the viewer hovers near the top of the screen, in the top right they’ll see options to go full screen, view a slideshow and even download images.

Add more photos and videos

Back in the Shared album on Photos you can add more photos and even videos.

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