How to Bulk Upload Thousands of Event Photos (Windows or Mac)

A wedding weekend, a conference or a marathon can easily leave you with 5,000 to 20,000 edited photos to deliver. Uploading that many photos is less about speed and more about not losing track: which albums are done, which files failed, and whether the gallery is complete before guests open it. This is the plan we recommend, whether you work on Windows or Mac.

1. Pick the right upload method for the job

• A few hundred photos: the web dashboard is fine. Drag and drop in your browser and you're done.
• Thousands of edited photos after the event: use the Kamero desktop app for Windows or Mac. Pick one event folder with one-shot upload, let the background queue run, and carry on working.
• Photos already in Google Drive (for example from a second shooter): import the public folder link instead of downloading and re-uploading. The import runs on Kamero's servers, and subfolders can become albums.
• During the event: use Kam-Sync to send photos from the camera as you shoot, then add the edited set afterwards.

WindowsMac

Why the desktop app for thousands of photos

The desktop app has five features the web dashboard doesn't, and they matter most at this scale:

• One-shot upload of a folder with subfolders: Pick one parent folder and the whole event is queued in one go. Each subfolder becomes an album named after it.
• Background upload: Uploads run in the app's background queue while you keep working. No browser tab has to stay open.
• Upload queue with auto-resume: The queue survives closing the app or restarting your computer and resumes automatically when you reopen it, without uploading anything twice.
• Up to ~10x faster uploads than the browser: Many photos upload in parallel. The ~10x figure is Kamero's internal measure, not an independent benchmark.
• Bulk download: Download all photos from an event straight to your computer, one folder per album.

Upload speed: Kamero's internal measure, not an independent benchmark. Real speed depends on your internet connection, file sizes and computer.

2. Make your folders match your albums

Export one parent folder for the event with one subfolder per album (Haldi, Sangeet, Ceremony, Reception, or Day 1 Keynote, Day 1 Breakouts and so on). With the desktop app's One Shot Original Upload, you select the parent folder once: each subfolder becomes an album named after it, and the preview shows the photos found in each one before you start. Keep it to one level of subfolders, because deeper folders aren't scanned.

3. Decide on Standard or Original before you start

• Standard: 1 credit per photo, optimized for fast viewing. In the desktop app, standard uploads also accept files over 50 MB.
• Original: 2 credits per photo, keeps the full-resolution file for print and archive, up to 50 MB per file. One-shot folder uploads use Original.
• Sell Photos events: standard uploads, up to 100 MB per file.

Switching halfway through a 10,000-photo event is painful, so choose once. If only a few clients need full-resolution files, see original quality photo delivery.

4. Clean up the export

• Export final JPEGs (or PNG, WebP, HEIC). Sell Photos events also accept TIFF and AVIF.
• Leave out rejects and duplicates in Lightroom or Capture One, not after uploading.
• Don't bother deleting hidden files. The desktop app skips Thumbs.db, desktop.ini and macOS ._ files automatically.

5. Run the upload so it finishes

• Use wired Ethernet if you can. It is steadier than Wi-Fi for hours-long uploads.
• Set your computer not to sleep while it is plugged in, on Windows and on Mac.
• Keep external drives connected until the queue is empty. The app reads each file from where it is stored.
• If the connection drops or you have to close the app, just reopen Kamero Admin: the queue resumes and skips photos that already made it.
• Start big uploads at the end of the day and let them run overnight.

On a PC? The Kamero desktop app for Windows guide covers installation and PC-specific tips. For a walkthrough of the app itself, see the desktop app bulk upload guide.

6. Check before you share

1. Compare the photo count of each album with the count of its folder.
2. Look in the upload queue for anything marked as failed, and retry it.
3. Give face recognition a little time to finish indexing new photos before you announce the gallery.
4. Open the gallery as a guest would, try a selfie search, and then share the link or QR code.

Afterwards, Download All in the desktop app saves the whole event to your computer, one folder per album.

Several photographers on one event?

Give each photographer their own album, or agree who uploads which folders, so nobody uploads the same set twice. We explain what happens when three photographers upload to one event at the same time.

Quick checklist

• ☐ One event folder, one subfolder per album
• ☐ Standard or Original chosen
• ☐ Desktop app installed on Windows or Mac and signed in
• ☐ Wired connection, sleep turned off, drives connected
• ☐ Counts checked and failed files retried
• ☐ Gallery tested, then shared

Frequently asked questions