Terms of Service

Draft dated November 2, 2026

Summary

• Your memories stay yours. We never claim ownership of your photos, videos, notes or voice recordings, never sell them, never show ads in your gallery and never use them to train AI models.
• Three roles. These terms cover Organizers (who create and manage an event), Guests (who scan a QR code or open a link to share or view, without an account) and Collaborators (co-hosts, planners, photographers or booth operators an Organizer invites).
• The Organizer is in charge. Organizers decide who gets the event link, whether guests can see the gallery and what stays in it. Everyone is responsible for keeping what they upload lawful and respectful.

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

"PhotoChime", "we", "us" and "our" mean the operator of PhotoChime, based in Ohio, United States. These terms, together with our Privacy Policy, govern your use of photochime.com, the PhotoChime web app for event photos, videos, text posts and audio messages, gallery embeds, QR code and printable card tools, the print shop and photobooks, and connected photo booth and cloud storage features (together, the "Services").

By creating an account, buying an event package, scanning an event QR code, opening an event link, or uploading or viewing anything through the Services, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

Some features described here may not be available at launch, including the print shop and photobooks, selfie photo search, audio messages, live slideshows, gallery embeds, cloud drive sync and photo booth pairing. The terms for each apply when we make it available.

2. Definitions

• Organizer (or host): the person or organization that creates an account, sets up an event or buys a plan, such as a couple, a family, a planner, a studio or a company.
• Collaborator: someone an Organizer invites to help with a specific event, as an editor, moderator or photographer.
• Guest: anyone who opens an event through a QR code, link, passcode, website embed or guestbook to view or contribute, without an Organizer account.
• Content: everything uploaded, recorded or submitted to the Services: photos (including HEIC, Ultra HDR and Live or Motion Photos), videos, audio messages, text posts, captions, overlays, comments, likes, guest names and print designs.
• Event link: a QR code or private link for an event. Each link gives only the access it was made for, such as uploading, viewing, a booth session or a download.

3. Eligibility and agreeing electronically

To create an Organizer account or buy a plan or print product, you must be an adult (18 or older in most places) and able to enter a binding contract. Children under 13 (under 16 in the EEA and UK) may not submit personal information or uploads without a parent's or guardian's consent.

When you tap a button such as "I agree", "Accept", "Upload", "Share" or "Buy", including when you accept an Organizer's consent message before uploading, you agree to these terms as if you had signed them by hand.

4. Organizer accounts, Collaborators and booth pairing

• Signing in. Organizers sign in with an emailed link, and may also use Google sign-in or additional security such as a passkey when we offer them. Keep your email account secure and your contact and billing details accurate.
• Collaborators. Organizers can invite Collaborators with a role limited to the events they choose. The Organizer is responsible for what invited Collaborators do.
• Photo booths and tablets. An Organizer can pair a photo booth or tablet with a short pairing code. A paired device can only reach the one event it was paired to, and the Organizer can unpair it at any time.

5. Guest access, passcodes and browser sessions

• Unlisted, not secret. Event galleries are unlisted and hidden from search engines. Anyone who has a working event link (and its passcode, if one is set) can do what that link allows. The Organizer decides where the QR code or link is printed, shown or shared, and is responsible for that.
• Organizer controls. Organizers can turn guest viewing off (guests can still upload, but only the Organizer and Collaborators see the gallery), hold uploads until a reveal time they choose, require a passcode, require or waive guest names, and cancel or replace a link at any time, which takes effect immediately. Repeated wrong passcodes are locked out automatically.
• Your browser session. When you open an event, we set a secure cookie that remembers your browser for that event, so you can see your uploads and their status in "My uploads" and delete your own uploads. Clearing cookies or using a private window starts a new session, and your earlier uploads can no longer be managed from it.

6. Who owns your content, and the permissions you give

• We own none of it. PhotoChime claims no ownership of any content Organizers or Guests upload, record or create.
• Guests to the Organizer. Guests keep the copyright in what they create. By sharing it to an event, a Guest gives that event's Organizer a permanent, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free permission to view, download, store, print (including photobooks, cards and wall art), show on event slideshows and share it for personal or commemorative purposes, and for commercial or promotional purposes only where the Organizer said so in a consent message before the Guest uploaded.
• To PhotoChime, only to run the Services. Organizers and Guests give PhotoChime and the providers we use a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide permission to store, check, convert and resize content, make previews, apply the overlays a Guest chose, sort and de-duplicate it, deliver it, package it into downloads, copy it to a cloud drive the Organizer connected, and send it to a print partner when a print order is placed. This permission ends when the content is deleted, apart from the backup periods in our Privacy Policy.
• What we will never do. We will never sell your content, show third-party ads in your gallery, use your event photos, videos or recordings in our marketing without your written permission, or use your content to train or tune AI models.

7. Feature terms

• Text posts and overlays. Guests may create styled text posts or add captions, stickers and filters to photos. Where a Guest decorates a photo, we may keep and export both the original and the decorated version for the Organizer.
• Audio messages. Where the Organizer turns them on, Guests may record audio messages in their browser, on a venue tablet or by phone. By recording, a Guest agrees to the recording and its delivery to the Organizer (and to playback in the gallery if the Organizer chooses). Organizers are responsible for any local rules on notice for recordings.
• Automatic sorting. We read the time a photo or video was taken (from its camera data) to place it in the event's parts of the day, such as getting ready, ceremony or reception, and we compare files to group duplicates and near-identical burst photos.
• Selfie photo search and photobook face detection. These are optional. A Guest's selfie is used only when that Guest starts a search and agrees on screen; face detection for photobook layouts runs only when the Organizer starts it. Face data stays within that one event, is never used to identify people by name or across events, is never shared with outside AI providers and is deleted when the feature is turned off, when the person asks, or when the event's hosting period ends. Our Privacy Policy has the details.
• Live slideshows. An Organizer who shows a live slideshow at a venue is responsible for turning on approval first if they want to check uploads before they appear on a public screen.
• Website embeds. An Organizer who embeds a gallery on another website (for example a wedding website builder) is responsible for that website's settings.
• Cloud drive sync. If an Organizer connects a cloud drive such as Google Drive, copies sent there are governed by that provider's terms. Deleting something in PhotoChime does not delete copies already in the Organizer's drive.

8. Acceptable use and fair use

Neither Organizers nor Guests may upload, record or share content that:

• shows, promotes or facilitates the sexual abuse or exploitation of children. We remove it, close the account, preserve evidence as the law requires and report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and law enforcement;
• is sexual content shared without consent, pornography, extreme violence or gore, or incites violence, terrorism, hatred or harassment;
• infringes anyone's copyright, trademark, publicity or privacy rights; or
• contains malware or files built to attack the software that opens them.

Upload checks. Every upload is held apart, checked to be a genuine photo or video file and scanned for malware before it is processed or shown. A Guest whose uploads trigger three malware detections within 24 hours is stopped from uploading, and the Organizer and PhotoChime can review it.

Fair use. PhotoChime is for sharing the memories of real events. It is not general cloud storage, file hosting or a way to distribute content. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, the following limits apply to protect every event:

• photos up to 60 megapixels, and video length and resolution as shown in your plan;
• up to 20 GiB of uploads per Guest per hour, and up to 500 new Guests per hour through one public event link;
• up to 15,000 items per event, with part of that capacity reserved for Guests invited with personal links.

Your plan may set lower limits, which we show before you buy.

9. Moderation, deletion and removal

• Organizers can approve uploads before they appear, hide anything from the gallery, or delete it. A deletion by an Organizer can be undone for 7 days, then becomes permanent.
• Guests can delete their own uploads from "My uploads" until 7 days after the event, while their browser session lasts. After that, they can ask the Organizer or email privacy@photochime.com.
• Anyone shown in a photo, video or recording uploaded by someone else can ask the Organizer, or email privacy@photochime.com, to have it removed.
• What removal does. When something is hidden, deleted or withdrawn, we stop issuing links to it, clear it from our delivery network, and rebuild any download archive that contained it. Links already issued expire within 10 to 15 minutes. Copies someone already downloaded before the removal cannot be recalled.

10. Prices, payment, refunds and how long your gallery is kept

• Payment. Event packages are a one-time payment per event unless you choose a subscription. Prices, limits and the gallery period are shown before you buy. Payments are handled by our payment processor (such as Stripe); we never see or store full card numbers. Price changes apply only to new purchases.
• Refunds. If you decide not to use a paid event package, you can ask for a full refund (less payment fees we cannot recover, where the law allows) at any time before the event date, or after it if the event received no guest uploads (up to 5 test uploads deleted before the event do not count).
• Printed products are made to order and cannot be refunded once sent to production, except for manufacturing defects or damage in shipping.
• Accounts closed for breaking section 8 are not refunded.
• Upload and gallery periods. Each plan has a period during which guests can upload and a hosting period during which the gallery stays online and downloadable, both counted from the event date (or from creation if no date is set) and shown when you buy.
• Download before it ends. Organizers are responsible for downloading their full-quality archive before the hosting period ends. We email the Organizer at least 30 days and again 7 days before the end, with the option to extend. After that, the event's content is permanently deleted, including from backups as described in our Privacy Policy.

11. Print shop and photobooks

• Check the proof. Any layout we generate, for QR signs, cards or a photobook draft, is a suggestion. You are responsible for checking every page before you download a print file or order: the photos, crops, quality warnings, names, dates and that printed QR codes scan.
• Printing and shipping. Printed products are made and shipped by print partners. By ordering, you allow us to send your print files and shipping details to them and the carrier. We replace items that arrive damaged if you send photos within 14 days of delivery. We are not responsible for carrier or customs delays, a wrong address entered at checkout, or errors in a proof you approved.

12. Our property and copyright complaints

The PhotoChime service, software, design, templates, logo and name belong to PhotoChime and its licensors. You may not copy, reverse-engineer or scrape the Services, or use them to build a competing product.

If you believe content on PhotoChime infringes your copyright, send a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) to legal@photochime.com with:

1. the copyrighted work you believe was infringed;
2. the event link or item, in enough detail for us to find it;
3. your name, postal address, phone number and email address;
4. a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorized by the owner, its agent or the law;
5. a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner; and
6. your physical or electronic signature.

13. No warranties, and phone and venue connections

TO THE EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

PhotoChime queues uploads and retries them when the connection comes back, but phone browsers may pause or stop an upload if you lock the screen, close the tab or the browser, or lose Wi-Fi or signal. Keep the upload screen open until each item shows it was received.

14. Limits on liability, and indemnity

TO THE EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, PHOTOCHIME AND THE PROVIDERS WE USE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, DATA, MEMORIES OR GOODWILL, OR THE COST OF REPLACEMENT PHOTOGRAPHY, EVEN IF TOLD THEY WERE POSSIBLE.

TO THE EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ABOUT THE SERVICES IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF WHAT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE, OR 100 U.S. DOLLARS. IF YOU USED ONLY A FREE PLAN OR TOOK PART AS A GUEST WITHOUT PAYING, YOUR ONLY REMEDY IS TO STOP USING THE SERVICES.

You agree to defend and indemnify PhotoChime and the providers we use against third-party claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from content you or your event's Guests uploaded, your breach of these terms or the law, or how you shared your event's QR code or links.

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under consumer protection laws that cannot be waived.

15. Changes, governing law and general terms

• Changes. We may update these terms for new features, security or legal reasons. We will change the date at the top and email Organizers about important changes at least 7 days before they take effect (30 days where the law requires).
• Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio and of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where the consumer protection laws of your country require otherwise.
• Events beyond our control. We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as internet or cloud provider outages, power failures or natural events.
• Severability and whole agreement. If a part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and PhotoChime about the Services.

16. Contact

• Event help, billing and refunds: support@photochime.com
• Legal questions, copyright notices and abuse reports: legal@photochime.com
• Privacy and removal requests: privacy@photochime.com