How to share site photos with your client
Take the photos wherever you like, but file them against the job rather than leaving them in a phone or a chat thread. Three things matter: a photo can still be found in a year, the client can see the ones meant for them without logging in to anything, and the photo that justifies a decision sits next to the signed record of that decision. WhatsApp does none of them.
What is wrong with using WhatsApp for site photos?
Nothing, until you need one back. Photos in a chat thread have no structure: they're ordered by when they were sent rather than what they show, they aren't attached to a job, and they compress on the way through, which matters when the photo is meant to evidence a detail.
The bigger problem is that they only exist where they were sent. When a dispute arrives eighteen months later, the photo that settles it is in a thread on a phone that may have been replaced, and nobody can prove when it was taken or by whom.
And the photo is rarely the whole argument. It usually sits beside a decision: the client saw this and said go ahead, the architect saw that and changed the detail. In a chat thread the photo and the yes are forty messages apart, if the yes was written down at all.
What should a site photo record actually do?
Four jobs. It should let someone find a photo without scrolling, prove when it landed and who put it there, let you show a client some photos without showing them everything, and keep the photo beside the decision it supports.
The last one is the test most tools fail. A gallery that lives in its own app, away from the drawings and the approvals, is a tidier version of the camera roll. The photo of the cracked lintel is worth something on its own; it's worth a great deal more sitting next to the variation the client signed because of it, on the same job, eighteen months later.
- Organised into folders you name, not one endless roll
- A caption on the shot, so the detail is searchable in words
- Filed against the project, not a person
- A record of who uploaded it and when
- Per-folder access, so internal shots stay internal
- Openable by the client from a link, with no account to create
- Next to the drawing or variation the client signed, on the same job
How does Portal Worx handle site photos?
Every project has a gallery of folders you create, each with its own audience. Upload from a phone browser or a desktop, in bulk, with a caption and description on every shot. Open any image full screen to check a detail, and download a whole folder as a zip when someone asks for the lot.
Because the folder carries the access, the internal photos and the client-facing photos can live in the same project without you keeping a second set somewhere else. Every upload is logged in the project activity trail with the person and the time, kept for a year and filtered so nobody sees an entry for a folder they cannot open.
The photos sit in the same project as the documents, so when the client approves the variation that the photo made necessary, the signed record and the photo are on the same job, findable together when the invoice is questioned.
How does a client see the photos without logging in?
Send the folder by link. One link opens a whole folder, or a single photo, a document or a report, for whoever holds it, with no account at their end. That covers the building-control officer, the insurer and the client who won't create another login. A folder link shows what is in the folder now: a photo you add appears, and one you remove disappears from every link at once. Links work for 90 days or until you turn them off, and you can add a six-digit PIN when the folder deserves a second check.
When the photo is the reason for a decision, send the decision for sign-off instead. Upload the variation or the revised drawing as a PDF, send the client one link, and they open it on their phone, leave a note if they need to, and approve with a drawn signature. The record comes back dated, signed and pinned to the exact file they saw, with its SHA-256 fingerprint, and it stays on the job beside the photo. Approvals go on documents, not on photos: the photo is the evidence, the PDF is what they sign.
You can also see whether the email arrived. Every message the workspace sent is listed with its delivery status and can be sent again in one click, so "did you get those photos" stops being a phone call.
What are the practical limits?
Images cap at 50MB each, which is far above what a phone produces, and the usual formats are supported: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF and AVIF. Storage is metered per plan, with warnings at 80 and 90 per cent, and the plan table on the pricing page says how much each includes.
Two things to know before you commit. On site it runs in the phone browser, so a place with no signal means the upload waits until you have some; a phone app exists and isn't yet in the app stores. And there's no drawing on photos: a client marks up a drawing on the PDF you send for sign-off, not the photo itself. If your crews routinely work without coverage, test that first.
A photo folder also isn't the thing that gets signed. If the client needs to agree to what a photo shows, put the decision in a PDF, upload it, and send that for signature; the folder link and the sign-off link can go in the same email.
Common questions
- Can I upload photos from my phone?
- Yes, through the phone browser, including several at once. An upload needs signal at the time. A phone app exists and isn't yet in the app stores.
- Can the client see all the photos?
- Only the folders you share with them. Each photo folder carries its own audience, so internal shots and client-facing shots can sit in the same project without the client seeing both.
- Can I send photos to someone without an account?
- Yes. A link opens a photo or a whole folder for whoever holds it, no account needed, for 90 days or until you turn it off. You can see whether the email landed and send it again in one click.
- Can the client approve a photo?
- Approvals go on documents: PDFs, image files and plain text uploaded to the job, not photos in the gallery. Upload the variation or the drawing the photo relates to, send the link, and the signed record sits on the same job as the photo.
- Is there a record of who uploaded what?
- Yes. Every upload is written to the project activity trail with the person and the time, kept for a year, and filtered so nobody sees entries for folders they cannot access.
Related
What else Portal Worx does
This page covers one part of it. Behind every request for sign-off is the job it belongs to: projects holding your documents and site photos, with a folder or a file shareable by link to someone with no account; versions with history and an approval pinned to each; reports built on site and exported as a PDF with your logo; threaded messaging; a year-long activity trail; and AI that catches you up on where a job stands without ever seeing more than you can.
See everything it does, or check the plans. Unlimited users and unlimited requests on all of them.
Put the photo next to the yes.
File this week's site photos against the job, send the client the folder by link, and send the variation they justify for signature. 14 days free, no card.