Share family photos by text or email

What is a circle?

A circle is a private space on ShareLocket for a group of people — family, friends, a team, a club. Once you're in one, sharing a photo with everyone is as easy as sending a text. There's nothing to download.

Four ways to post

There are four ways to add a photo (or a quick note) to your circle:

1. Text it. Send a photo, video, or short message to your circle's phone number. See Post to your circle by text.
2. Email it. Attach a photo to an email and send it to your own circle email address. See Post to your circle by email.
3. Add it from the website. Sign in, open your circle, and add a photo, video, file, or note. See Post to your circle from the website.
4. Call it. Call your circle's number and leave a voice message. See Call your circle and leave a voice message.

However you send it, everyone in the circle sees it.

To text or email, send from a phone number or email address you've confirmed on your account — that's how we know a post is yours. The Post from anywhere box in your circle shows which ways are ready for you. Where it says Add email, Add number, or Confirm instead of an address, follow the steps under Need help? below.

Finding your circle's number and address

Open your circle to find your personal number and your circle email address, or save the personal contact card from your welcome message. Use your own card, not someone else's, so sending a photo is as simple as picking your circle from your contacts. See Your circle's number and posting address.

After you post

Photos, videos, voice recordings, PDFs, and supported Office files can be texted or emailed in. If you send another kind of file, we'll write back to say it didn't make it. Most other things can be added from your circle on the website. For documents, see Share a document in your circle.

Your photo appears for everyone once it has finished uploading and passed a short safety step, usually within moments. What's shared in a private circle isn't put through the content screening we use for sharing albums. Each day, everyone in the circle also gets a summary of what was shared by email, and by text if they've confirmed a mobile number and agreed to get texts, unless they've chosen something else. You can switch to weekly or turn it off in the circle's Notifications. See Choose how you hear from your circle.

A web link you write in a note or caption becomes clickable for everyone in your circle once we've checked that it's safe. Until then, or if it doesn't pass, it stays as plain text.

Everyone can comment on what you post, and you can comment on theirs. See Comment on a post in your circle.

Sharing albums made in your circle

Sharing albums made in your circle are listed together: near the top of your circle, choose Collections & more, and you'll find an Albums row inside it. See Find everything in Collections & more.

Private to the people in it

Only the people in your circle can see what's shared there. There's no public page and nothing to browse outside your own circle. See Who can see what in my circle?

What's next

• Post to your circle by text
• Post to your circle by email
• Post to your circle from the website
• Share a document in your circle
• Comment on a post in your circle

Need help?

If a text or email to your circle doesn't seem to go through, it's usually because you sent it from a phone number or email address your account doesn't know yet — a work address, say, or a new phone. When that happens, we write back to tell you.

You can fix that yourself in a minute.

1. Sign in and open My Account.
2. Go to Email and phone.
3. Choose Add an email or Add a phone, and enter the one you were sending from.
4. Choose Send verification code, then type in the code we send you.

Once it's verified, try again using your saved personal circle contact. For summary replies, the one-reply and 14-day limits still apply.

Still not going through? See My text or email didn't post. Still stuck? Use the Still stuck? Get in touch link at the bottom of the Help panel.