Your photos are stored on secure cloud storage. Within the first year that the photos are uploaded by your photographer, they’re available immediately upon download. After the first year, the photos are moved to a secure, long-term cloud storage. This is the archival state that ensures the photos are still preserved and retrievable, but they might not be immediately accessible. To access archived photos, a request must be made to retrieve them from the long-term storage, which may take some time depending on the system's processes, between 4-15 hours. After that, they will be immediately available again for another year, unless your photographer updates the gallery settings.
This article will assist you in the steps to unarchiving your gallery.
1. To begin the process of unarchiving your high-res gallery downloads, select, Download All Photos - High Res, from your gallery.
2. Once you attempt this full gallery download, you will see a message indicating your gallery has been archived.
Pro Tip: If you have the option to download Web-Size Photos, they will always remain accessible for immediate download. To learn more about the differences between High-Res and Web-Size, read our article here.
3. Select Retrieve Photos to begin the unarchival process. Once you’ve done this, you will expect to be notified via email when your photos are packaged and available for download. This process can take up to 15 hours.
This unarchival process can also be conducted by your photographer. However, the request is the same and will not speed up the unarchive process.
Once photos are unarchived, they will remain accessible for 12 months, after which they will be archived once more.