The access code: when it helps and what it cannot do

A guest gallery is normally protected by exactly one thing: an address nobody guesses. That is enough for most parties. The link is on a sign in the room, and whoever is in the room was invited.

Sometimes it is not enough. That is what the access code is for: a word the gallery asks for before it opens.

How it behaves

• Entered once, then quiet. The guest types the code on their first visit, after that their browser remembers the unlock. On the same device the gallery does not ask again.
• You are never asked. As a signed-in host or co-host you always pass through. Being asked for your own code would be theatre.
• Changing the code locks everyone out again. The unlock in the browser is derived from the code itself. Change it and every previous unlock is void. That is the emergency brake if a code ends up in the wrong place.
• It applies per gallery. With several galleries in one event, each can have its own or none.

You set it in the gallery settings, sixteen characters at most. Leaving it empty means no code.

What it actually prevents

It keeps out people who have only the link. That happens more often than you think: the link travels into a family chat and onwards, the sign in the hotel foyer gets photographed by a hotel guest, the invitation sits on a desk in an open-plan office.

With a code the link only leads to an entry form. That includes the Live Wall and the data behind it. A locked gallery hands nothing out just because somebody knows the address.

What it cannot do

It does not make pictures invisible retroactively. Whoever was already inside and downloaded a picture, or passed its address on, has it. For speed, the pictures themselves are served from a delivery network and not re-checked on every request. That is why a gallery with four hundred pictures opens in a second.

So the access code is a lock on the door, not a watermark on every picture. For the question "should this picture be visible at all" there are other tools: hiding, and for delicate crowds approval before publication.

When we would set one

• Company party: practically always.
• Club event with children: yes, together with approval.
• A party in a public space (hotel, restaurant, community hall) where strangers see the sign too.
• A large wedding with a widely distributed link: if the link went out with the invitations, a code is a sensible second bolt.

And when not: at small family parties, and anywhere with many older guests. Every extra input costs participants, and a code printed on the same sign as the QR code only ever protects against the forwarded link, not against somebody standing in the room.

Choosing a good code

Short, sayable, from the occasion: anna-tom, summerparty25, herbert80. Not 1234, and nothing you have to spell out. Say it once out loud when you announce the gallery. It is on the table sign anyway.

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