Managing Photos

Uploading

From an event’s admin view, use the upload area to add photos:

Drag and drop files or folders directly.
Click to browse and select files.
Supported formats: JPEG, PNG and WebP by default. Settings → General → Allowed File Types decides what every upload path accepts; GIF, HEIC/HEIF, camera RAW and videos (MP4, MOV, WebM, AVI) can be added there. See General settings.
Maximum file size: Max File Size (MB), 50 MB by default. Videos have their own Max Video Size (MB), 500 MB by default (see Video Support).

Thumbnails are generated automatically during upload using Sharp (for images) or FFmpeg (for videos).

Upload progress

On the beta channel from v3.147.0-beta.0 (PicPeak PR #1691 ) the upload dialog is only the picker: it closes when you click Upload, and a progress bar under the admin header takes over. It shows the transfer progress, then the processing count once the files are on the server, then the outcome. A clean finish clears itself after a few seconds; failed files stay listed with the reason until you dismiss the list. The bar stays while you move around the admin and links back to the gallery. One upload runs at a time, and closing the tab mid-upload asks for confirmation.

Content check

Every photo upload path checks the file content, not just its name: the file’s signature must match its type, and an image Sharp can decode must decode. A text file renamed to .jpg is rejected and no photo is created. HEIC/HEIF and camera RAW get the signature check only. On the beta channel the check covers guest uploads, the chunked large-file upload and the v1 API upload from v3.174.2-beta.0 (PicPeak PR #2084 ); before that only the regular admin upload was checked.

Duplicate files

On the beta channel from v3.171.0-beta.0 (PicPeak PR #1950 ) the admin uploader skips a file whose bytes the gallery already holds. The upload bar lists such files as Duplicate, with Upload anyway per file and Upload all anyway for several, to store a second copy on purpose.

Only byte-identical files match, and only within the same gallery.
Guest uploads, API uploads and photo replacement are never refused.
Photos imported from a watch folder, an external folder or S3, and photos uploaded before this version, have no stored hash and never match.

Camera RAW

Camera RAW files are opt-in: add their extensions to Allowed File Types. On the beta channel from v3.162.0-beta.0 (PicPeak PR #1783 ) the uploader accepts these extensions even though browsers report no file type for them:

dng, arw, sr2, srf, cr2, nef, nrw, orf, pef, srw

Canon CR3, Fujifilm RAF and Panasonic RW2 are not accepted for upload. PicPeak builds thumbnails and previews from the JPEG preview embedded in the RAW file and keeps the original for download.

Dropping a folder (beta channel from v3.161.0-beta.0, PicPeak PR #1795 ): the uploader reads the folder and its subfolders and adds the files it accepts, in name order per folder. Files of other types, such as XMP sidecars, are skipped. The Upload button waits until the folder has been read. The usual limits apply: if the folder holds more than Max files per upload allows, the first files up to the limit are added and a notice says how many fit. For a very large folder the scan stops early and says so; drop its subfolders one at a time.

Bulk operations

Click a photo to select it, then Shift-click another to select the whole run between them. The range adds to what you already had rather than replacing it, and never deselects, so you can build a selection from several runs. Clearing the selection resets the starting point.

Select multiple photos to perform batch actions:

Move to a different category.
Delete selected photos (they go to the trash).
Download selected photos as a ZIP archive.

Trash

On the beta channel from v3.172.0-beta.0 (PicPeak PR #1986 ) a photo you delete goes to the gallery’s trash instead of being removed at once. The Trash button on the Photos tab shows how many photos it holds and opens a list with the deletion date, who deleted it, the time left and the size. From there you can Restore photos or Delete permanently, one at a time or as a selection.

Retention: Settings → General → Trash retention (days), 30 by default, 0 to 365. When it runs out an hourly job deletes the photo for good. 0 deletes photos at once, as before the trash existed.
Disk space: photos in the trash still use storage. A delete no longer frees space until the photo is purged.
Guests see a trashed photo as if it did not exist: it is gone from the gallery, downloads, ZIPs, the slideshow and the API.
Photo limit: trashed photos do not count against the gallery’s photo limit. A restore that would go over the limit is refused.
Restoring brings the photo back with its id, ratings, comments and other feedback. A photo that was waiting for review when it was deleted comes back still waiting.
The photo.deleted webhook fires once, when the photo goes to the trash.
Not trashed: deleting a whole gallery, files removed from a watched folder and external-folder removals delete outright. Archiving a gallery empties its trash first.

Review queue

Uploads can be held back until someone approves them:

Guest uploads, when the gallery’s Approve guest uploads before they are published setting is on (beta channel from v3.171.0-beta.0). See Moderation.
Team members’ uploads, when Review team members’ uploads before they are published is on and the uploader’s role lacks the Review Team Uploads permission (beta channel from v3.167.0-beta.0). See Multi-Admin.

Held uploads stay hidden from guests and clients. The Photos tab says how many uploads are waiting and offers the filters Pending review and Rejected; select photos there and Approve or Reject them. Rejected uploads stay hidden. Uploads that are waiting count towards the photo limit.

Filtering and sorting

The admin photo view supports:

Filter by likes, ratings, comments, or favorites.
Search by filename.
Sort by upload date (Sort by Date), Capture Date, Name, Size or Rating, ascending or descending.

Sort by Name uses natural order, so IMG_9 comes before IMG_10, and sorts by the original filename the photo was uploaded with (beta channel from v3.174.2-beta.0; from v3.158.0-beta.0 by stored filename). Sort by Capture Date uses the EXIF date, and the upload date for photos without one. In the list view, the Photo, Uploaded, Feedback and Size column headers sort the same way. Capture-date sort, natural name order and a working rating sort are on the beta channel from v3.158.0-beta.0 (PicPeak PR #1773 ).

Export for post-processing

Generate Capture One or Lightroom-compatible file lists from filtered selections. This lets you identify client favorites and apply edits to matching RAW files.

Adding photos via file system

For managed galleries using local storage, PicPeak has a built-in file watcher that detects photos copied directly into the event’s storage folder.

You must create the event in the admin panel first. The file watcher only processes photos for events that already exist in the database. Copying files alone does not create a gallery.

Once an event exists, copy images into its folder:


# Find the event slug in the admin panel URL or share link
cp /path/to/photos/*.jpg storage/events/active/<event-slug>/

The file watcher will automatically:

Detect new files (once a file has stopped growing for 2 seconds; operators can change this with FILE_WATCHER_STABILITY_MS, see Environment Variables)
Create database records for each photo
Generate thumbnails
Classify photos in collages/ or individual/ subfolders by type

Supported formats:

Images: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp
Videos: .mp4, .mov, .webm and other files recognised as video. They get a placeholder thumbnail.
Camera RAW (beta channel from v3.170.0-beta.0, PicPeak PR #1968 ): dng, cr2, cr3, nef, nrw, arw, sr2, srf, raf, rw2, orf, pef, srw, raw, 3fr, dcr, kdc, but only extensions listed in Allowed File Types. A RAW file whose extension is not listed stays in the folder and is skipped with a log warning.

When files are deleted from the folder, the file watcher removes the corresponding database records.

Watching an external library

For photos kept on a NAS or in an existing library, use Reference external folder and the per-event Watch folder for new files checkbox. The external watcher imports new photos without copying originals. Removing a source file keeps the gallery record, and photos deliberately deleted in PicPeak stay excluded from later automatic scans. See External Media → Watch a folder for setup, supported formats, permissions and network-share polling.

Storage

Photos are stored in the events/active directory. When an event expires, its photos are moved to events/archived. The storage directory holds thumbnails and processed files.

Monitor disk usage:


du -sh events/ storage/ backup/