Shared Albums for Google Photos (by JanZeman)

Shared Albums for Google Photos (by JanZeman) allows you to easily display publicly shared Google Photos albums in your WordPress posts and pages using a simple shortcode. The plugin uses the modern Swiper library to provide a beautiful, touch-enabled gallery experience.

Note: This plugin is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google LLC. Google Photos™ is a trademark of Google LLC.

IMPORTANT: Short links (photos.app.goo.gl) might stop working in the future. While both full and short link formats work today, we strongly recommend using the full link format https://photos.google.com/share/ to ensure your galleries continue working. The plugin will display a warning banner when short links are detected.

Features

• Modern Gallery Viewer – Powered by Swiper 11, a modern mobile-friendly slider
• Responsive Design – Works perfectly on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices
• Shortcode Playground – Admin-only sandbox on the Settings page for experimenting with [jzsa-album] shortcodes and previews
• Touch Gestures – Swipe navigation on touch devices
• Fullscreen Mode – Click to view photos in fullscreen
• Play/Pause Control – Fullscreen play/pause button with spacebar keyboard shortcut
• Click Navigation – Optional click/double-click on left/right areas to navigate between photos
• Dual-Mode Autoplay – Separate autoplay settings for normal and fullscreen modes
• Zoom Support – Pinch-to-zoom and double-click to zoom on photos
• Keyboard Navigation – Use arrow keys to navigate, spacebar to play/pause in fullscreen
• Progressive Loading – Loads preview images first, then full-resolution for optimal performance
• Smart Preloading – Automatically preloads adjacent slides for smooth navigation
• Lazy Loading – Images load as needed for optimal performance
• Error Recovery – Graceful fallback with placeholder when images fail to load
• Download Button – Optional download button to save photos to your device
• Customizable – Control dimensions, autoplay, delays, and more
• Cached for Performance – Gallery HTML is cached for 24 hours
• Large Album Support – Handles up to 300 photos per album (Google Photos limitation; very old iOS/WebKit devices may be limited to 25 photos for stability)

How It Works

The plugin fetches your public Google Photos album and creates a responsive gallery. Simply paste the share link from Google Photos into the shortcode.

Security & Error Handling

• SSRF protection – validates Google Photos URLs
• Proper output escaping for XSS prevention
• WordPress coding standards compliant
• Swiper library bundled locally
• User-friendly error messages for invalid or short links
• Automatic detection and warning for deprecated goo.gl links

Usage

Basic Usage

RECOMMENDED: Use the full photos.google.com/share/ URL format for future compatibility.

Concrete example with a real album link (for testing):

Note: Short links (photos.app.goo.gl) are still supported but will show a deprecation warning.

Advanced Usage

Shortcode Parameters

Required:

• link – Google Photos share URL (supports both full and short link formats)

Gallery Appearance:

• background-color – Background color hex code or “transparent” (default: #FFFFFF)
• image-fit – How photos fit the frame: “cover” (default, fill and crop edges), “contain” (letterbox, no cropping), or “stretch” (fill and distort).
  • width – Gallery width in pixels or “auto” (default: 267)
• height – Gallery height in pixels or “auto” (default: 200)

Image Quality:

• image-width – Full-resolution photo width to fetch from Google (default: 1920)

• image-height – Full-resolution photo height to fetch from Google (default: 1440) Autoplay Settings:

• autoplay – Enable autoplay in normal mode: “true” or “false” (default: true)

• autoplay-delay – Autoplay delay in normal mode, in seconds, supports ranges like “4-12” (default: “4-12”)
• autoplay-inactivity-timeout – Time in seconds after which autoplay resumes following user interaction (default: 30)
• start-at – Starting photo: “random” (default) or a 1-based photo index like “1” or “12”. Values out of range fall back to 1.

Fullscreen Settings:

• full-screen-autoplay – Enable autoplay in fullscreen mode: “true” or “false” (default: true)
• full-screen-autoplay-delay – Autoplay delay in fullscreen mode, in seconds, supports ranges like “3-5” or single values (default: 3)
• full-screen-switch – Full screen switch mode: “double-click” (default: double-click), “button-only” (button only), or “single-click” (single-click). Works both in and out of full screen mode.
• full-screen-navigation – Full screen navigation mode: “single-click” (default: single-click, click left/right areas to navigate), “buttons-only” (navigation buttons only), or “double-click” (double-click left/right areas to navigate). Only works when in full screen mode.

Display Options:

• show-title – Display album title: “true” or “false” (default: true)
• show-counter – Show the photo counter (e.g., “4 / 50” or “Trip to Bali: 4 / 50”): “true” or “false” (default: true)
• show-link-button – Show external link button to open album in Google Photos: “true” or “false” (default: false)
• show-download-button – Show download button to save current photo: “true” or “false” (default: false)

Gallery Mode:

• mode – Gallery mode (default: single):
  • “single”: Single photo viewer with zoom support. Users can pinch to zoom or double-click to zoom.
  • “carousel”: Multiple photos visible at once. On mobile and tablets it shows 2 photos at a time, and on desktop it shows 3 photos.
  • “carousel-to-single”: Carousel preview (2 or 3 photos visible) that switches to a single photo viewer in fullscreen.

Getting Your Album Share Link

1. Open Google Photos and select an album
2. Click the share button (or three-dot menu > Share)
3. Click “Create link” or “Get link”
4. Copy the FULL share link (format: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN...)

IMPORTANT: Google Photos may show a short link like https://photos.app.goo.gl/abc123. These short links might stop working in the future.

Current Behavior: – Short links still work but display a warning banner – We strongly recommend using full links to avoid future issues

How to get the full link: – On web: Right-click the album share link and choose “Copy link address” to get the full link – Or visit the short link in your browser and copy the full link from the address bar

Example: Full link (recommended): https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNxLo... ✅ Short link (works with warning): https://photos.app.goo.gl/abc123 ⚠️

Use the shortcode with full link: [jzsa-album link=”https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNxLo…”]

Or with short link (not recommended): [jzsa-album link=”https://photos.app.goo.gl/abc123″]

Important: The album must be public (shared via link) for the plugin to access it.

Credits

• Uses Swiper – MIT License
• Developed by Jan Zeman

Privacy Policy

This plugin does not collect or store any user data.

Use of external Google services

• The plugin fetches public Google Photos album pages from https://photos.google.com and image files from *.googleusercontent.com in order to render the galleries.
• Only publicly shared album links are supported; the plugin has no access to private albums or any content that is not already available via a public share link.
• The plugin does not collect, store, or transmit user credentials or personal data. It only caches album HTML and image URLs in WordPress transients for performance, and this cache is stored locally in your WordPress database.

Support

For support, please visit the plugin support forum or GitHub repository.