What belongs in every photo delivery email
The gallery is the product. The email is the packaging — and most of us write it in ninety seconds on a Tuesday, between an edit and an invoice.
That is a strange place to economise. The delivery email is the one message in the whole job that the client is guaranteed to open, read twice and forward. It arrives at the exact moment they are happiest with you. Everything they will ask you over the next month — and whether they book you again — is shaped by what it says.
Seven things belong in it. Six of them take one line each. The seventh is the one that gets you booked again.
1. The image count
"There are 412 images in your gallery."
One number, and it ends "is this all of them?" before it gets typed. Without it, clients count — or worse, they remember the forty minutes of family formals and wonder where the other angles went. With it, the gallery is complete by definition.
If you culled hard on purpose, say so in the same line: "412 images, chosen from the whole day." It reads as care rather than omission.
2. The date the gallery closes
"Your gallery is open until 14 March. Please download your full-resolution images before then."
Give a date, not a duration. "One year" asks the client to do arithmetic on a day they will not remember; "14 March" goes straight into a calendar. Then add one clause about what happens after it — archived and restorable on request, or gone — so nobody finds out by clicking a dead link a week after the anniversary.
This is also the line that makes your expiry policy enforceable. A window that was stated plainly at delivery is procedure; the same window discovered at the deadline feels like a platform failure. If you have not settled on a window yet, how long a client gallery should stay live walks through the trade-off, and why the reminder email a few weeks before closing is worth sending.
3. How to download, in one sentence
"The download button is at the top of the gallery; on a computer everything comes as one zip file, and on a phone the photos save straight to your camera roll."
Adjust that to whatever your gallery actually does — the point is that the client should not have to discover it. Most "I can't find my photos" emails are really "I downloaded a zip on my phone and don't know where it went." One sentence covering where the button is, what arrives and where it lands on a phone prevents nearly all of them.
If your gallery host has a help page written for clients, link it here rather than writing your own. You want this line short, because the next one matters more.
4. What they may do with them
"Print them, post them, crop them for your profile — and if you tag me, I'd love to see where they end up."
Say plainly what the client is allowed to do. Print, post, crop, tag. Most clients have a vague sense that photographers are touchy about usage and would rather ask than guess, so if you leave it out you will get asked — usually one person at a time, over months.
If there are limits, this is where they go, in the same plain register: "Personal use is all yours; if a business wants to use one, send them my way." Anything your contract already says, the email can simply repeat in ordinary words.
5. One favourite, named
"My favourite is number 188 — the two of you on the stairs just after the rain stopped. Look at your mum in the background."
Pick a single frame and say why. It does something no gallery layout can: it tells the client how to look. People scroll a gallery of four hundred images at the speed of a feed. Naming one frame, with a reason, slows them down, and they carry that slower attention into the rest.
One is the number. Three favourites is a shortlist; one is a point of view.
6. The review ask, while the gallery is open in their other tab
"If you have two minutes, a short review would mean a lot to me — here's the link."
Clients will never be happier with you than they are right now, with the gallery still open in the next tab. A week later the glow has faded into life admin, and the review you meant to ask for becomes a follow-up email that feels like a chore on both sides.
Make it easy: one direct link to wherever you collect reviews, no instructions, no list of five platforms. And ask exactly once. The delivery email is the right moment; a second request is the wrong one.
7. The next occasion
"Your first anniversary is 21 June next year. If you'd like a short session around then, I keep a few evenings free that month."
This is the one that gets you booked again. Most delivery emails end with "thanks again, enjoy!" — a goodbye. Name the next thing you could shoot for this client, with a concrete date or window, and the email ends on the next booking instead.
It is almost always knowable. A wedding has an anniversary. A maternity session has a newborn session a few months behind it. A family who booked for autumn light will want the same thing next autumn. A business headshot goes stale when the team grows. You are not selling; you are remembering something about their life that they will be glad someone did.
Keep it to two sentences and one specific date. "Let me know if you ever need anything" books nobody. "Early June, a few evenings free" gets replies.
A photo delivery email template
Here are the seven as one photo delivery email template. Swap every bracket for your own words — and resist the urge to add an eighth section.
Subject: Your photos are ready, [first names]
Hi [first names],
Your gallery is ready: [gallery link]
There are [number] images in it, [chosen from the whole day / the full session].
The gallery is open until [date]. Please download your full-resolution images before then; after that it is [archived and I can restore it on request / taken down].
To download, [where the button is and what arrives — one sentence]. On a phone, [where the photos land].
You are welcome to [print, post, crop and share them]. [Any limit, in one plain sentence.] If you tag me, I'd love to see where they end up.
My favourite is [image number or description] — [one sentence on why].
If you have two minutes, a short review would mean a great deal: [review link]
[Next occasion and date], and I keep [a few sessions / some evenings] free around then. Just reply to this email if you'd like one.
Thank you for having me there, [your name]
That is under two hundred words. It takes five minutes to fill in, not ninety seconds — and every one of those minutes comes back as a question nobody has to ask.
Write it once, then keep it
Save your photo delivery email template somewhere you will actually find it, and fill it in fresh for each job. The skeleton stays the same; the favourite and the next occasion are the two lines you should never paste from last time, because they are the two lines that prove you were paying attention.
Do this for your next delivery and the one after it. By the third, the email will be the part of the job clients mention back to you.
Tobren Deliver hosts the gallery that email points to, and has a help page written for your clients on opening, favouriting and downloading their photos. More articles.