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Limiting Free Downloads and Other Restrictions
Limiting Free Downloads and Other Restrictions
Pixieset Team avatar
Written by Pixieset Team
Updated over a week ago

Every client relationship is unique, and your available download options reflect this. Maybe you offer a package that provides a limited number of free downloads for your clients; or perhaps you only want some Sets available for download and not others. This guide will go through some of the more common download workflows and help you to set up your Collection appropriately.

Note: If you are looking for a general guide to your available Download Settings you can find that here.

On this Page:

Locating the Advanced Settings

From any Collection that has Photo Downloads turned On, click the second icon under the thumbnail for Settings > Download Settings and click the Advanced Settings tab:

Limit Photo Downloads

Toggle this setting On if you would like to set a limit to the total number of downloads, shared across all visitors to this Collection:

Anyone attempting to download from the Collection will be prompted to enter their email address and the download PIN. Both visitors and clients will see a popup indicating how many downloads in total are left for the Collection, and can choose from the available download resolutions and where they would like the photo to be saved:

Any downloads initiated by anyone from the Collection will immediately be deducted from the remaining available photos based on your limit. We have a complete guide to the downloading experience in our help article here.

Note: Turning Limit Photo Downloads On from the Advanced Settings in a Collection will make single photo downloads available (up to the quantity you set from this feature).

Restrict Downloads to Clients Only

To use this feature, a Collection Client will need to be added to the Collection to allow downloads. If no client has been assigned, you will see a notice to this effect in the dashboard.

Option 1: With a Download Limit

Maybe you want the bride and groom for a wedding shoot to have access to a limited number of downloads, but allow other Collection visitors to view the photos only or purchase from the Store if applicable. To achieve this, a download limit has been set, and Restrict Downloads to Clients Only is turned On:

Now, only the Collection Client can download from the Collection. Once the client signs in with their email address and the download PIN, they will be able to download single photos up to the maximum you’ve set via the download limit:

If your client has used up their total number of available downloads from the gallery and wants to pay for more, they can add any digital download products to their cart in the Store.

Note: If you would prefer clients to get their free downloads from your Store, you can create a coupon for them to redeem at checkout. With this option, you may wish to turn downloads off from the gallery entirely (effectively limiting downloads to Store orders). You can read more on this alternative option here!

Option 2: With no Limit

In this example, no download limit has been set, but Restrict Downloads to Clients Only is turned On. For example; you may want the bride and groom for a wedding shoot to have free access to downloads, but allow other Collection visitors to view the photos only or purchase from the Store if applicable. With the setup below, only the Collection Client can download from the Collection, with no limit to the number of total downloads:

Once the client signs in with their email address and the download PIN they will be able to freely download the entire gallery/single photos (based on what you make available in the general Download Settings):

Choose which Sets are Available for Download

You can choose which Sets are available for download from the Collection. This setting allows you to quickly change the availability for each Set in your Collection. For example, you might want clients to download only from your final edits, and not from the other, unedited Sets. You can see this setup in context below:

Any Sets that have been made unavailable will not appear on the download screen:

Note: If you have some Sets unavailable for download this will apply to all downloads completed from the Collection (including single photo downloads from those Sets, and any full gallery downloads). It will also impact your ability to download images from your client's Favorites List (ie. any selections from a Set that is unavailable for download). This setting does not impact digital download purchases from the Store.

Limit PIN Usage for Gallery Downloads

You might want to allow your client to download the full gallery of photos a set number of times using the PIN you’ve provided them with. This setting allows you to choose the number of times a unique PIN can be used to initiate a full gallery download:

This option is only shown if there is a download PIN and if no download limit has been set (as it applies to full gallery downloads using the PIN only). It does not apply to videos or to single photo downloads.

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