When somebody wants a picture out of the gallery

"That one picture of me at the buffet … could you take it out?" This request comes up at almost every party, usually the day after and usually a little embarrassed. It is not a complaint, it is the normal case, and it takes ten seconds.

Hide, do not delete

In almost every case that is the right answer. A hidden picture is gone for all guests immediately: out of the gallery, off the Live Wall, out of the bulk download. For you it stays visible and remains in your archive.

Why that beats deleting: the request is almost never "destroy that picture", it is "I do not want that out there". Hiding does exactly that. And if the matter resolves itself (a bad day, a second look, somebody else liked it after all), one click brings it back.

With photos more happens than you see: hiding actually removes the published display versions rather than merely concealing them. An address somebody still has in their history leads nowhere afterwards. Only the original stays with you, so the picture can be brought back.

When deleting is right

When somebody explicitly asks for the picture to be gone, not just invisible. Then delete it: the picture disappears, original included, every generated version included, and it will not be in your next ZIP either. That is final, which is why it is the second step and not the first.

Who is allowed to do this?

You and your co-hosts. A guest cannot remove other people's pictures, otherwise one bad mood could empty half a gallery. So the request always goes through you, and that is how it should be: you know who has to ask whom.

Prevention is easier

• Say once that it is possible. One sentence in the announcement takes the weight out of the whole thing: "if a picture of you should not be in the gallery, tell me and I will take it out". After that people ask instead of stewing.
• No tasks that force somebody into the frame. "A selfie with three strangers" produces exactly the pictures that get withdrawn afterwards.
• For delicate crowds: approval before publication. Then you see the picture before everyone else does. For company and club events that is the calmer route.
• Remember the bulk download. Whoever already downloaded everything has it. Hiding works instantly in the gallery, but it does not retrieve a file from somebody else's downloads folder. That belongs in an honest answer to the request too.

And the rest?

At the end of the runtime all the data is deleted anyway, the gallery, the pictures, the originals. If you would rather not keep track, the archive download gives you everything that matters and the rest disappears by itself.

How we handle the data.