Approve, select, rate, flag, comment, and leave voice notes.
In Coworking mode a client can approve or reject photos one at a time or in bulk, send their picks to you, rate with stars, and flag photos with colour markers.
They can leave comments pinned to a specific point on a photo, and reply in a thread. They can also leave voice notes on a photo.
Voice notes write themselves down: while a note records, the browser transcribes it, so the words appear under the note (marked Heard), show up in search, and are quoted in the notification email. The transcription uses the device's own dictation — on a Mac, keep Dictation on in System Settings → Keyboard; without it the note still saves, just without the words.
Which of these are available depends on the permissions you set in the gallery's Collaboration settings (likes and voting, comments, flagging, and so on).
For feedback that is easier said than typed, the camera on their toolbar reads Record: it records their screen and their voice as they talk through the gallery, and the recording is saved to the gallery for you to play back.
There are three ways to give a verdict: hover a photograph in the grid and use the ✓ or ✗ on it, open it and use Approve in the lightbox, or select several and approve or reject the lot at once. Tapping a verdict again takes it back. The Send review button on the toolbar wakes as soon as one photograph has been decided, and its tooltip counts what is about to travel.
Two different things wear the word “select”, so it is worth naming them apart. Approving and rejecting is a verdict on one photograph — the ✓ and ✗ on the frame, or in the lightbox. Select mode is the checkboxes, for doing something to several frames at once: making a set, downloading them, flagging them — and approving or rejecting the lot in one go. The button on the toolbar does neither; it SENDS the review — every verdict, with the comments and notes already left along the way — which is why it reads Send review.
The running tally in their toolbar — “2 approved · 1 rejected” — is also the way to start over: it asks first, names the exact number, and clears only the picks. Comments, drawings and voice notes are untouched.
Sending a selection is not a one-way door. Once it is with you the client's button reads Review sent, with Reopen beside it: they can take it back, adjust, and send again. Their approvals are kept when they do — reopening is a chance to change a selection, not to start it over — and you are told in your activity feed either way.
Your client opens the same workspace you work in — the same masthead, search, filters, sort, grouping, sets and lightbox. What they do not get is the administration: no settings, no uploading, no deleting, renaming, moving or copying, no versions, no sharing or inviting, no AI tools, no portfolio, and no internal notes. Those controls are absent on their side rather than greyed out.
Everything they leave is signed with the name they gave at the door, so you always know who said what.
On a phone the same link opens a room made for the hand. The gallery opens on its banner, with your flag words as chips above the photographs (each with its count, appearing once it is used). The button before the chips opens the panel on the left: the delivery's rooms (its sub-galleries), a search by file name, what to show (each flag in its own colour and word, Loved, Approved, Rejected, With notes, Not marked yet — each key named, with its count), stars, the sets, the order (yours, by name, newest, oldest, most loved, reversed), grouping by flag, and the size of the photographs; a line above the grid says what is on, with Clear. A tap opens a photograph full screen: swipe between them, tap once to hide everything but the picture, tap twice to look closer and pan with a finger. The photograph view is laid out as the dropa iPhone app: down the right edge the eye (notes on the photo or not) with ⓘ, the thread, and the verdict pill — the flag's word over Rate; at the foot Approve, Comment, Voice, Draw and Thread; the heart with everyone's count on the photograph itself. Set a flag from your list in one tap, rate, Approve, love it — each choice says itself back for a moment above the foot: the photograph's small print, the flag's colour and word, its stars (or Not rated), Approved or Rejected — record a voice note at a spot (tap where it belongs, then speak), or draw on it — a marker, rectangle, circle and eraser, four inks, three weights, with a note (@ to mention someone, as in a comment; a voice note can carry a line of words with a mention too). The eraser works as in Apple's Notes: choosing it swaps the inks for a size bar from fine to broad, the circle it will rub out shows on the photograph while the size changes, and while it rubs the same circle rides under the finger; a tap alone rubs out the circle under it. The size is remembered on the phone. Comment works as in the dropa iPhone app: it asks them to tap the photograph where the comment belongs, then a box writes it there (@ to mention someone) and Save pins it with their name. Notes stand on the photograph, numbered on a disc of their kind — a drawing red, a voice note blue, a comment paper — and Thread opens them as a sheet with the photograph still in view: how many notes and from whom, an eye to show or hide them on the photograph, ✕, and All / Drawings / Comments / Voice to sort them; each note gives its number, who made it, what kind and when, then the note and its replies. The box under the notes writes a note (they then tap where it belongs) or a reply, and when it is empty offers a voice note or a drawing beside it; typing @ offers the people in the gallery's conversation — and the studio's team when the phone knows it — and a mentioned person is told by email. A tap on their own avatar offers replies by email: once they open the confirmation link, your replies to their notes, your own new notes on the gallery's photographs (never internal ones) and your chat messages reach that address too, as well as the gallery's own client — one email per gallery every ten minutes at most, never to the person who wrote it, and none if the gallery's client notifications are off. Marking a note handled stays the studio's. Every sheet in the room shares that head. The panel's head is one even colour with the strip behind the clock, the list fading softly under it as it scrolls; the What to show keys wrap as named chips; under Take away, Download says exactly what it will take — all the photos, the ones being viewed, or the ones selected — with the contact sheet beside it. Photographs stay sharp at every size, from one across to four. Once picks are sent, the button says so with a small chartreuse seal. The cover runs up behind the phone's clock, and the strip behind the clock stays clear as they scroll, switch light and dark, open a photograph or a sheet — the photographs pass behind it, never a grey band. Sets show as compact cards two to a row — a small mosaic of the set, its count, its name, who made it and when, and whether it is still asked for or already sent — with a New set card beside them. On a phone the contact sheet keeps its pages full width under a graphite bar (the name, Print, ✕) with its settings beneath as a sheet of grouped cards that follows the finger up and down — from the handle, from anywhere on it while it is lowered, or by pulling its cards down from the top — and settles high or as a slim strip to see more of the pages (a tap on the handle does the same); the cards run on under Safari's bar to the foot of the screen — page, grid, paper, what shows under each frame, branding — in large rows with the phone's own switches. Long-press a photograph or tap Select to choose several: each photograph shows a large circle that turns blue with a tick, the bar at the foot offers one big blue Select all button before anything is chosen, then counts the choice with Select all (or Unselect all) and Clear beside it, and a tap on the bar opens every action — save as a set, download as a ZIP, set a flag, love, approve. With Increase Contrast on, the glass stays frosted with firmer edges and a deeper tint; with Reduce Transparency on, the floating controls show as solid surfaces, and the strip under Safari's address bar takes the room's own colour. The panel runs all the way to the bottom of the screen, under Safari's bar. Every sheet rises and falls on the iPhone's own curve and follows a finger pulled down from anywhere on it (a little springs back, further closes it); a photograph stands on the app's dark grey paper, and its sheets are the same grey, down to the strip under Safari's bar; with the keyboard up a sheet's own colour fills the space above the keys (never the photographs below); in the notes sheet the box to add a note sits right under the notes; the notes sheet on a photograph drags by its handle, up to the whole screen or down to give the photograph back. Every note shows who made it — an avatar with their initial, in a colour that stays theirs across the room — with its number as a small badge, and voice notes play in the room's own player. The first time they open the gallery and the first photograph, a few short tips point at the controls (Skip puts them away for good). Pinch a photograph to look closer — the Done button and the scale stay on screen. Send my picks sits within the thumb's reach, and downloads show their sizes first: phone & web, or the largest size you allow. Pinch the grid for more or fewer columns, or turn on file names under the photographs. On a photograph, ⋯ opens its menu: Approve or Reject as two big keys, add it to one of their sets or start a new one, hide or show the notes on it, download it, and the file itself (size, camera, lens, exposure, when it was taken); a pull down closes the photograph, and the note count on a tile opens its notes directly. Whatever is chosen in the panel is kept in the address, so a filtered view survives a reload and can be sent. Chat rises as a sheet — half the screen, or the whole of it from the grabber. The lamp in the gallery's head turns the room light or dark (it follows the phone until they choose), in the studio's own two palettes.