The event is over, the gallery is full, and you want every photo safely on infrastructure you own. Two tools work together here: the ZIP download, which gives you an immediate local copy on your laptop, and the Google Drive backup, which files the collection in your own account, one folder per guest, as uploads come in. Here is how to use both, and in what order.

ZIP or Google Drive: two complementary copies

  • The ZIP is a snapshot of the gallery at a given moment: one file, quick to grab, ideal for sorting on your own computer or handing the collection to a photographer.
  • The Drive backup is an ongoing copy: you re-run it as the collection grows, it only sends new photos, and your archive stays current in a service you control.

One does not replace the other. Drive protects you if you forget to download before retention ends; the ZIP gives you an offline copy that depends on no online service at all.

Downloading photos as a ZIP

Saving photos one by one is slow and error-prone. A ZIP fixes both: one request, one file, nothing missed, and every photo's metadata preserved.

Per-guest ZIP

In the admin dashboard, open a guest's nickname page and click the download button: the server assembles a <nickname>.zip on the fly containing every photo that guest uploaded. This is the method to favour for an archive sorted by person, and for sending each guest the photos they took.

Selection or roll ZIP

In the gallery, tick a few photos or use "Select all", then download the selection as a ZIP, up to 500 photos per file. The same selection works inside each roll ("pellicule"), so you can grab a single theme such as the ceremony or the dance floor. In a private gallery a guest can only ZIP their own photos; in a shared gallery they can also download everyone else's.

What is inside the ZIP

  • Original files. The ZIP is built without recompression: each extracted photo is identical to the upload, EXIF included (capture date, GPS when present).
  • Original filenames, with special characters replaced by an underscore; duplicate names get a suffix instead of overwriting each other.
  • Uploaded formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and HEIC/HEIF (the default on recent iPhones), up to 25 MB per photo, plus videos (MP4, MOV, WebM) on the Soirée plan (up to 60 s) and the Studio plan (up to 3 min). Videos go into the ZIP just like photos, without recompression.

Large galleries: go guest by guest

Beyond a few hundred photos, download per guest rather than as one selection. Each file stays manageable, the archive sorts itself by person, and an interrupted download only needs to be replayed for a single nickname.

Preparing your computer

  • Disk space. A modern smartphone photo often weighs several megabytes, and ZIP barely shrinks JPEGs: a 1,500-photo wedding quickly adds up to several gigabytes. Plan for double that while you extract.
  • Connection. Use a stable wired or home connection; avoid mobile data and public Wi-Fi for big files, which tend to stall halfway.
  • Browser. Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge all handle multi-gigabyte downloads. Keep the tab open until the transfer completes.

Backing up to Google Drive

A shared gallery is perfect while photos are coming in, but you also want a copy on your infrastructure: one you own, can share with family or the designer building your album, and that outlives the retention period. That is what the Google Drive backup does, included from the Soirée plan.

Connect your Drive

In the admin dashboard, the "Connect" button in the Google Drive panel runs a standard Google authorisation. It uses the narrowest scope available, drive.file: Photobooth only sees files it created itself in your Drive, and the rest of your documents stay invisible. Ideally, connect it the day you create the event, before the first uploads.

Run the backup, then run it again

The panel always shows how many photos are still waiting. One click on "Run Drive backup" copies everything not yet copied, in successive waves for large collections. The backup is incremental: a photo already copied is never re-sent, so you can safely run it on the night, the next morning, and again after late uploads.

Folder structure

Photobooth creates a Photobooth_<event code> folder in your Drive, then one sub-folder per guest (@nickname) holding their photos under their original filenames. Share a single sub-folder with one family without exposing the rest, or download the whole folder in one go from Google Drive.

A one-way copy

The backup is not a two-way mirror: if you delete a photo from your Drive it will not be recreated, and deleting it from Drive does not remove it from the gallery. On storage, remember that a free Google account offers 15 GB shared with Gmail and Google Photos; a full wedding collection may justify extra storage.

Disconnecting

The "Disconnect" button deletes the authorisation Photobooth stores. You can also audit or revoke access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Photos already copied stay in your Drive.

After the download: verify, sort, archive

  1. Verify the file. Open the ZIP without extracting and check the file count against the admin dashboard: an interrupted download can leave a partial file.
  2. Extract to a dedicated folder, such as ~/Photos/Wedding-2026/, and keep the original ZIP next to it as a second copy.
  3. De-dupe against the photographer. Guests often shoot the same moment as the professional: sorting by capture time makes near-duplicates easy to spot.
  4. Convert if needed. Older Windows software may struggle with HEIC; a batch export to JPEG (Preview on Mac, ImageMagick) solves it.
  5. Archive in three places: your computer, an external drive and Google Drive. If the Drive backup was on, the third copy is already done.

The recommended routine

  • Before the event: connect Google Drive when you create the gallery.
  • On the night: run a first Drive backup.
  • The following days: re-run the backup after late uploads, then download each guest's ZIP.
  • Before retention ends (30 days on Discover, 6 months on Soirée): final backup, counter at zero, archive checked.

To get the collection right upstream, read how to collect wedding photos from guests, and compare plans on the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I download every event photo in a single ZIP?

Yes, through the gallery: click "Select all" and download the selection as a ZIP. Each selection ZIP holds up to 500 photos, which covers most dinners, birthdays and bachelorette weekends. For a larger wedding, the safest method is to download each guest's ZIP from the admin dashboard: one click on a nickname's page produces a file named after that guest containing all of their photos, with no cap. You end up with an archive naturally sorted by person, and if one download fails you only retry that single file instead of starting over. Finally, if you enabled the Google Drive backup, the whole collection is already filed in your Drive, one sub-folder per guest, and can be downloaded in one go straight from Google Drive whenever you need a fresh copy.

Are the photos in the ZIP full quality?

Yes. The ZIP is assembled on the fly from the files exactly as they were uploaded, in store mode, with no recompression: every extracted photo is byte-identical to the original the guest sent, same size, same resolution. EXIF metadata survives intact, so you keep the capture date and time, plus the GPS location when the phone recorded it. That means you can re-sort the whole collection by moment of the day in any photo app. The only possible difference is the filename: special characters and accents are replaced with an underscore so the archive opens cleanly on every system, and two files sharing a name get a numeric suffix instead of overwriting each other. The image content itself is never touched, resized or re-encoded at any point, which matters for prints and albums.

Is the Google Drive backup automatic?

It is incremental, but you trigger it. Once your Google account is connected, the admin dashboard shows how many photos are still waiting to be sent; one click on "Run Drive backup" immediately copies every photo that has not been copied yet, and the counter drops back to zero. Photos already copied are never sent twice, so you can run the backup as often as you like: during the event, the next morning, or a week later once late guests have uploaded. For a large collection, the transfer runs in successive waves without any extra action on your part. A good routine is one backup on the night itself, another after the late uploads, and a final one just before your plan's retention period ends, so nothing is left behind.

Can Photobooth see the rest of my Google Drive?

No. The connection uses the narrowest scope Google offers, called drive.file: Photobooth can only see and modify the folders and files it created itself in your Drive. Your documents, spreadsheets and personal photos stay completely invisible to the service. In practice, Photobooth creates one folder for your event, then one sub-folder per guest, and writes nowhere else in your account. You can withdraw that access at any time in two ways: the "Disconnect" button in the admin dashboard, which deletes the authorisation Photobooth stores, or the permissions page of your Google account. Either way, with no further steps, the photos already copied stay in your Drive: they belong to you and no longer depend on Photobooth in any way, even if you never log in to the gallery again or your plan expires.

What happens to the photos when retention ends?

Originals stay available on Photobooth for your plan's retention period: 30 days on Discover, 6 months on Soirée, and no time limit on Studio while the subscription is active. After that, the online gallery is no longer accessible and your personal copy takes over. That is why you should not wait until the last day: download the per-guest ZIPs as soon as the collection feels complete, and run one last Google Drive backup to make sure the counter is at zero. Photos copied to your Drive stay there indefinitely, regardless of your plan and even if you never come back to Photobooth. An extra copy on an external drive rounds off the setup for long-term archiving, so the event survives any single service or device failing, now or ten years from now.

Do I need a paid plan for the Google Drive backup?

Yes, the Google Drive backup is included from the Soirée plan, a one-time €29 payment for the event, and in the Studio subscription at €59 per month for professionals. The free Discover plan, at €0 with no credit card, already lets you test the full flow with one event, up to 100 photos, 10 guests and 30 days of retention, and ZIP downloads are available there, per guest and per selection. For a small dinner that can be enough, as long as you download your ZIPs before the 30 days are up. For a wedding or a weekend, Soirée lifts the photo and guest caps, extends retention to 6 months and adds the Drive copy, which guarantees a personal archive, sorted by guest, that lives outside Photobooth entirely and stays yours.