How to use PicShare

Get the app and sign up

PicShare is free on iPhone and Android. Download it, then sign up with your email address or with Google. On an iPhone you can also continue with Apple.

Next, choose a display name and a username. Your username is how friends find and add you. A profile photo is optional, and you can add one later.

Tip: Settings are behind the gear on your Profile.

Create a space

A space is a shared album for one trip, event or group of friends. Every photo anyone in it takes shows up for everyone in it.

1. Go to Spaces, tap Create or join a Space, then Create a Space.
2. Give it a name your group will recognize, like the trip or the event. A cover photo is optional.
3. Invite any friends who are already on PicShare, or skip that step, and create the space.

Tip: Whoever creates a space is its admin, and the admin lets in the people who join with its link or code.

Invite your group

Open the space and tap Invite. Pick whichever way suits where everyone is:

• Share link: send it to the group chat. Anyone who doesn't have PicShare yet lands on a page with the App Store and Google Play buttons.
• QR code: when you're together, tap Show QR code and let people point their phone camera at it.
• Invite code: six characters, for typing in under Join a Space.
• Invite friends: friends already on PicShare are listed here. Invite them and they join with one tap, no approval needed.

People who use the link, the QR code or the code ask to join, and the admin approves them. A waiting request shows on the space's card and inside the space: tap Review to see who's asking, above the people already in.

Join someone else's space

How you get in depends on what you were sent:

• With a link: tap it, and PicShare opens on the invite. Tap Ask to join. If you don't have the app yet, install it and tap the link again.
• With a code: go to Spaces, tap Create or join a Space, then Join a Space, and enter the six characters.
• Invited by a friend: the space waits at the top of your Spaces screen, marked INVITED. Tap Join.

A request made with a link or code waits until the space's admin lets you in. Until then the space shows as WAITING on your Spaces screen, and PicShare tells you when you're in.

Take photos

The camera is the middle screen of the app. Swipe sideways, or tap the names at the bottom of the camera, to get to Profile and Spaces.

The space your photos go to is shown at the top of the camera. Tap it to switch to another space, or to create a new one.

The INSTANT / REVIEW button, next to PHOTO and VIDEO, sets what happens after each shot:

• Instant, the default: every shot goes to the space the moment you take it. For a few seconds afterwards you can still take it back.
• Review: each shot waits for you first. Add a caption, draw or write on it, crop it, or retake it. Nothing is shared until you tap Upload.

Switch to VIDEO to record clips of up to 15 seconds. The gallery button beside the shutter adds photos and videos that are already on your phone, and inside a space the Add tile does the same.

Tip: Photos you take in PicShare go to the space, not to your phone's gallery, so they don't fill up your phone. If you'd like a copy of every shot on your phone as well, turn on the download arrow at the top of the camera.

No signal, roaming and mobile data

Keep shooting. Photos taken without a connection wait on your phone and upload by themselves once you're back online, even if you close the app in between. While they wait, they already show in the space on your own phone.

• To keep roaming costs down, turn on Upload on Wi-Fi only in Settings, and photos wait for Wi-Fi.
• Need them out right away? Tap the upload status at the top of the camera and choose Send now: the photos waiting go over mobile data, and Wi-Fi only stays on for the rest.
• With Wi-Fi only off, PicShare tells you when a day's uploads over mobile data pass 100 MB, and offers to switch it on.

Inside a space

Open a space to see everyone's photos, each with the person who took it. Tap a photo to see it full screen, and swipe to the next.

• Like any photo, comment on it, and reply to other comments. Type @ to mention someone, or @all to notify everyone in the space.
• Use the sort button to order photos by Date taken or Date added. Date taken, oldest first, tells a trip in the order it happened.
• In Settings → Notifications you choose what you're told about: new photos, likes and comments, and friends.

Save and share photos

Photos keep the resolution they were taken in, and anyone in the space can save them to their own phone.

• One photo: open it and save it from the full-screen view.
• Several: tap Select, choose the photos, and save them together.
• The whole space: open the space's menu and choose Sync to device. It saves only the photos you don't have yet, so running it again never makes duplicates.
• Sharing: from a photo, or a few you've selected, choose Add to another space, Share to Instagram story, or Share to… for WhatsApp, AirDrop and any other app.

Open the camera from your Lock Screen

On an iPhone with iOS 18 or later, PicShare can take one of the two buttons at the bottom of your Lock Screen, so the shared camera is one press away.

1. Press and hold your Lock Screen, then tap Customize.
2. Choose one of the two buttons at the bottom to replace.
3. Pick PicShare.

Face ID or your passcode still opens the app, as with any shortcut. The same button can also go in Control Center or on the Action Button, and these steps are in the app too, under Settings → Lock Screen shortcut.

Running a space

• The admin approves requests to join, can remove members and can delete the space. If the admin leaves, whoever has been in the space longest takes over.
• Everyone can delete the photos they added. Photos other people added stay.
• Leaving a space keeps your photos in it, and you'll need a new invite to come back. If you're the last person in it, leaving deletes the space and its photos.
• Deleting a space deletes it for everyone in it, along with every photo anyone added. It can't be undone.
• You can report any photo or comment, and block someone from the space's member list. A blocked person's photos and comments are hidden from you, and they aren't told.