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Keep a gallery fresh with new photos every day, without anyone touching it. A photo feed pulls a new set from your own photo storage into your media library, on a schedule you set. Then you point a Gallery section at it. Who can do this: Contributors, Editors, Admins and Owners can build and change feeds. Editors, Admins and Owners can also use Refresh now.
Feeds have no draft. When you choose Save, the change takes effect right away, with no publish step.

Before you start

  • An Admin or Owner connects your photo storage once, in Connections → Photo storage. See Photo storage.
  • Know where your photos sit in that storage: the folder they’re under, and whether they’re sorted into year, month and day folders, such as 2026/May/31.
  • A photo feed suits a big, growing photo collection, such as hundreds of new photos a week. To hand-pick a few photos, use a photo album instead.

Build a feed

1

Open the list

Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) and choose Photo Feeds under Manage. You can also press G, then E.
2

Start a new feed

Choose New Photo Feed. The editor opens on the Source tab.
3

Say where the photos are

On the Source tab:
  • Title: the feed’s name, such as “Today at Parker’s”. A Gallery section lists feeds by this name.
  • Photo source connection: the photo storage to draw from.
  • Path prefix: the folder the dated folders sit under. Leave it empty if they’re at the top level. For example, if your photos sit at “daycare/2026/May/31/”, type “daycare” here and choose Year / Month / Day below. The feed then looks in daycare/2026/May/31/, daycare/2026/May/30/ and so on.
  • Folder layout: how deep the dated folders go: Year / Month / Day, Year / Month, Year, or No date folders — one flat path. Folder names like “May”, “05” and “5” all work.
The feed editor on the Source tab: Title "Today at Parker's", Photo source connection "Daily photo uploads", Path prefix "daycare", Folder layout Year / Month / Day.The feed editor on the Source tab: Title "Today at Parker's", Photo source connection "Daily photo uploads", Path prefix "daycare", Folder layout Year / Month / Day.

Tell the feed where your photos are kept.

4

Choose which photos

On the Selection tab:
  • Draw photos from: the dates to choose from. The dates are your folder names, not when a photo was taken or uploaded. Choose The most recent days, This year, The last few years, A specific date range or Everything in the bucket.
  • Recent days means the last 5, counting today; change it in How many recent days. For a date range, set From and To.
  • For example, The most recent days with 5 days on May 31 looks in the folders for May 27 to May 31.
  • Everything in the bucket means every dated folder in your photo storage. A bucket is the storage space your photos sit in.
  • With No date folders — one flat path, there are no dates to choose from: the feed draws from every photo in the Path prefix folder.
  • How to spread the selection: A total number, spread across the window takes Photos per refresh (30 to start) from as many different days as it can. A number from every day takes Photos from each day (10 to start) from each day.
  • Avoid recently shown photos: on by default. Each refresh prefers photos that haven’t been shown lately, so a big collection keeps producing new sets.
The Selection tab: Draw photos from The most recent days, How many recent days 5, How to spread the selection A number from every day, Photos from each day 10.The Selection tab: Draw photos from The most recent days, How many recent days 5, How to spread the selection A number from every day, Photos from each day 10.

10 photos from each of the last 5 days makes a 50-photo set.

5

Set the photo size and shape

The Photos tab starts with good settings, so most feeds can skip it.
  • Convert to: WebP (smallest — recommended) or JPEG (widest compatibility). Converting also strips location and camera details from the photos your site shows.
  • Longest edge (pixels): bigger photos are scaled down to this. 2000 is plenty for a full-screen view.
  • Shape: keep Original proportions for the Mosaic and Masonry layouts. Or crop every photo to one shape, such as Square (1:1), for an even grid.
  • Alt text for every photo: a short description of what the photos generally show, such as “Dogs playing at Parker’s Puppy Playland”. Screen readers read it, and the full-size photo viewer (the lightbox) shows it as the caption.
  • The same text goes on every photo the feed brings in, so keep it general.
  • Each refresh brings in a new set, so a description you write on one feed photo doesn’t carry over to the next set. For photos that each need their own, use a photo album.
6

Turn on the schedule

On the Schedule tab, turn on Refresh automatically and choose Refresh how often. Every 6 hours (recommended) suits most feeds.
7

Save it

Choose Save.
8

Fill it now

Editors, Admins and Owners: open the Status tab and choose Refresh now. A big set can take a minute or more. See “Refresh a feed by hand” below. Contributors can’t use Refresh now: the feed fills at its next scheduled refresh, or ask an Editor or Admin to refresh it for you.

Show it on a page

In a Gallery Preview or Gallery (Full) section, open the Gallery tab. Set Photo source to Photo Feed (refreshes itself from an external source), then choose your feed under Photo Feed. See Gallery.
Make the feed bigger than the gallery. Say the feed holds 200 photos and the section’s Maximum photos is 24. Turn on Rotate photos automatically on the section’s Motion tab, and the extra photos keep swapping in while visitors watch.

Refresh a feed by hand

You can fetch a fresh set at any time, whether or not Refresh automatically is on.
  • One feed: open it, go to the Status tab, and choose Refresh now. The button reads Refreshing… while it works. You can keep working or close the editor, and the refresh carries on.
  • Several feeds: in the Photo Feeds list, select them and choose Refresh now in the bar above the list.
The Status tab: the Refresh now button, Last refreshed showing the date and time of the last refresh and how long ago it was, Last result ok, Photos showing 90, and an empty Last message.The Status tab: the Refresh now button, Last refreshed showing the date and time of the last refresh and how long ago it was, Last result ok, Photos showing 90, and an empty Last message.

The Status tab shows how the last refresh went.

A refresh always uses the feed’s saved settings. If you’ve just changed something, choose Save first. The Status tab tells you how the last refresh went:
  • Last refreshed: when it ran.
  • Last result: ok, partial or error.
  • Photos showing: how many photos your gallery has from this feed now.
  • Last message: why the last refresh had problems, in plain words.
A partial refresh can show fewer photos than you asked for. It happens when some photos couldn’t be fetched, or when the search through your storage stopped early. For the second, set a narrower Path prefix or the right Folder layout.

Good to know

  • A failed refresh never empties your gallery. The feed keeps showing its previous photos until a refresh works.
  • Old sets clean themselves up. After each refresh, the previous photos are deleted once Keep the previous photos for (minutes) has passed. It starts at 30, so feeds don’t fill up your storage.
  • Photos you use are kept. Feed photos are ordinary media library images, in the feed’s own folder under Photo Feeds. If you put one on a page, in a post or in an album, it leaves the feed for good. It moves to that album’s folder, or to a folder named after the page or post under Pages & Posts.
  • Deleting a feed deletes its photos, except the ones you’ve used elsewhere.
  • Your storage stays untouched. A feed only reads from your photo storage. It never changes or deletes your originals there.

Troubleshooting

Editors, Admins and Owners can use Refresh now. If you need it, ask an Admin to give you Refresh photo feeds in People & Roles. See People & Roles.On a feed you haven’t saved yet, the Status tab says “Save this feed once and its photos can be fetched from here.” Choose Save first.
Some photos couldn’t be fetched, or the search stopped early. Read Last message for the reason. If it mentions the search, narrow the Path prefix or fix the Folder layout, save, and refresh again.
The refresh failed, and your gallery is unchanged. Read Last message on the Status tab. Most often, the photo storage connection needs attention: ask an Admin or Owner to check it in Connections → Photo storage.
Another refresh of this feed is in progress, by the schedule or someone else. Wait for it to finish. The Status tab then shows its result.
  • Check Photo source connection isn’t Not set.
  • Check Path prefix and Folder layout match how your photos are stored.
  • Widen Draw photos from. A window of recent days finds nothing if no photos were added in those days.

Photo storage

connect the storage your feeds read from.

Gallery

show a feed on a page, with motion that keeps it changing.

Photo albums

hand-pick and order photos instead.

Media library

find feed photos in the Photo Feeds folder.