For Scouts, parents & leaders

Troop photos. And exactly who can see them.

Galleries hold the pictures from meetings, hikes and campouts. These are photos of other people's children. So the second half of that heading matters as much as the first, and it is worth five minutes.

1

Find the galleries

Open Events in the sidebar and choose Photo galleries.

You get one card per gallery, usually one per trip. Sort them by Newest or by Title A-Z. Tap one to open it.

Inside, tap any picture to see it full size and move through the rest with the arrows.

2

Take a copy

A gallery can be downloaded whole, as a single zip file, at full size. Much easier than saving forty pictures one at a time.

You need to be signed in to do it, and you only get the photos you were already allowed to see.

3

Add your own

Every member can upload, Scouts included. You do not need a special permission to put your campout photos in.

What you upload does not appear right away. It waits for a leader to look at it. Until they do, nobody else sees it. That is not a fault, and it is not personal. It works the same way for every member who is not a leader. A leader's own upload goes in directly.

Photos taken on a phone carry hidden data. That usually includes the exact spot and time they were taken. TroopPlanner strips all of it as the picture is saved. It rebuilds the image from the picture alone. What lands in the gallery is the photo and nothing else, and you do not have to remember to turn anything off.

4

Names on photos

Members can be tagged in a picture, so you can find the ones your Scout is actually in. Tags show when you open a photo full size.

One rule is yours, and it is worth knowing. You can always take off a tag of yourself, or of a Scout you are the parent of. No permission is needed. Nobody has to approve it. If you do not want your child's name on a photo, take it off yourself.

Adding a tag is different. It needs permission to see member records, so not every parent has an Add tag box. Removing your own is always there.

Tags are for members only. They are never shown to the public.

Three kinds of gallery. Know which you're looking at.

Every gallery is in one of three states. They look similar from inside, so this is the thing to check before you upload anything.

  1. Draft. Being put together. Only the leaders running it can see it. Nothing here is visible to the troop yet.
  2. Troop. The normal state. Every signed-in member of your troop can see it. Nobody outside can.
  3. Public. Published to the troop's public page. Anybody with the link can see it, with no login at all. Search engines may find it.
Approved onlyA public gallery shows only photos a leader has approved. Nothing pending is ever visible outside.
No namesVisitors get the pictures and nothing else — no tags, no uploader, no member information of any kind.
No bulk copyThe download-everything link is behind the login. A visitor cannot take them all in one go.
Senior leaders onlyMaking a gallery public is deliberately a high permission. Most leaders cannot do it.
5

Getting a photo taken down

Ask any leader. They can hide a photo right away, and they do not need a reason from you.

Hiding is not deleting. The picture leaves the gallery at once and stops being visible to anyone. It is kept where leaders can find it, so a mistake can be undone. Deleting it for good is a separate step, and only senior leaders can do that.

Was the gallery public? Ask them to un-publish it too. That shuts it to the outside world at once. It stays visible inside the troop.

When it doesn't work

The first two are the same answer: it is waiting for a leader.

What happened What to do
I uploaded photos and cannot see them They are waiting for a leader to approve them. Nobody else can see them either. Leaders get a notice when photos are waiting, so a nudge usually does it.
My photo never appeared at all A leader can hide a photo without telling anybody. It might be blurred, or show a child whose family has asked not to appear. Ask if you want to know why.
There is no Photo galleries in my menu Your troop may not be using galleries, or you may not have been given access. Ask a leader.
My upload was refused Only real image files are accepted, and a caption has to be under 500 characters. A screenshot saved as the wrong sort of file is the usual cause.
My child's name is on a photo Open the photo and remove the tag. You can always do that for yourself or for a Scout you are the parent of, without asking anyone.
A gallery I could see has gone It has probably been archived at the end of a season. Ask a leader — archived galleries can be brought back.
I found troop photos on the open internet Somebody published that gallery on purpose. If it should not have been, ask a senior leader to un-publish it. That takes effect at once.
Leaders, before you publish a gallery: published means published. Anyone with the link, no login, and search engines may index it. Photos of youth deserve a moment's thought, and a word with your committee about what your troop's policy actually is.

Still stuck?

Try the other guides, or ask a leader in your troop.