Sharing
Ente supports end-to-end encrypted sharing of your photos and videos.
This allows you to share your photos and videos with only the people you want, without them being visible to anybody else. The files remain encrypted at all times, and only the people you have shared with get the decryption keys.
If the person you want to share with is already on Ente, you can share an album with them by entering their email address.
If they are not already on Ente, you can send them an invite and then share with them after they've signed up.
Alternatively, you can create public links to share albums with people who are not on Ente.
With public links, the files are still end-to-end encrypted, so the sharing is still secure. Note that the decryption keys are part of the public link so keep in mind that anybody with the link will be able to share it with others.
Both shared albums and public links allow collaboration.
Links
You can create links to your albums by opening an album and clicking on the Share icon. They are publicly accessible by anyone who you share the link with. They don't need an app or account.
These links can be password protected, or set to expire after a while.
You can read more about the features supported by Links here.
Albums
If your loved ones are already on Ente, you can share an album with their registered email address.
If they are your partner, you can share your Camera folder on Android, or Recents on iOS. Whenever you click new photos, they will automatically be accessible on your partner's device.
Collaboration
You can allow other Ente users to add photos to your album. This is a great way for you to build an album together with someone. You can control access to the same album - someone can be added as a Collaborator, while someone else as a Viewer.
If you wish to collect photos from folks who are not Ente, you can do so with our Links. Simply tick the box that says "Allow uploads", and anyone who has access to the link will be able to add photos to your album.
Organization
You can favorite items that have been shared with you, and organize them into your own albums.
When you perform these operations, Ente will create a hard copy of these items, that you fully own. This means, these copied items will count against your storage space.
We understand there are use cases where this approach will consume extra space (for eg. if you are organizing photos of a family member). We chose hard copies as a first version to avoid complexities regarding the ownership of shared items, in case the original owner were to delete it from their own library.
We plan to tackle these complexities in the future, by copying a reference to the item that was shared, instead of the actual file, so that your storage will only get consumed if the original owner deletes it from their library. If this sounds useful to you, please participate in this discussion.
Technical details
More details, including technical aspect about how the sharing features were implemented, are in various blog posts announcing these features.
Shareable links for albums, and their underlying technical implementation. Since then, we have also added the ability to password protect public links, and configure a duration after which the link will automatically expire.
We are now working on the other requested features around sharing, including comments and reactions.
Limitations
Sharing is only available to paid customers. This limitation safeguards against potential platform abuse.