Guides
The birthday party on one shared roll
By the Unveil team · Published July 30, 2026
The problem with birthday photos is not that nobody takes any. It is that forty of them live on one person's phone, nine live on someone else's, and the person whose birthday it is ends up with a group chat full of pictures they have to ask for.
One shared camera fixes the arithmetic. Everyone at the party shoots the same roll, nobody can look at it while the party is on, and the whole album develops at once when the evening winds down.
Why six shots is the right number
The birthday preset gives each guest six frames across a six-hour window, for up to 25 people. That is deliberately tight. Six frames is roughly one for the arrival, one for the table, one for the cake, and three for whatever the evening actually turns into — and the limit is what makes people aim rather than spray.
It also keeps the album readable. Twenty-five guests at six shots is a maximum of 150 photos, which is an album someone will genuinely look through. The same party photographed without a limit produces a folder nobody opens twice.
For a smaller dinner, drop the guest count and leave the frames alone. For a party that starts in the afternoon and ends late, widen the camera window rather than adding shots — more hours, same discipline.
When to open it
The preset reveals as the party ends, which suits a birthday better than the morning-after timing a wedding wants. People are still together, still in the room, and the album becomes the last thing that happens rather than a notification the next day. The starting numbers are on the birthdays page, and every one of them can be changed.
The exception is a surprise party. If the guest of honour arrives an hour in, set the camera window to open when the first guests do, so the setup and the waiting are on the roll too — that footage tends to be better than the surprise itself.
Wherever you land, print the code and put it on the tables rather than passing a phone around. The printable table signs were made for weddings but work unchanged at a birthday.
The birthday preset
- Six shots for each guest
- A camera window of six hours
- Up to 25 guests
- Reveal as the party winds down
These are the app's birthday preset numbers. Every one of them can be changed when you create the event.
Free for a small one. One purchase for a big one.
Get the appQuestions people ask
Six per guest is the preset, and for most parties it is enough. Twenty-five guests at six frames is up to 150 photos of one evening — more than any album needs, and far more than anyone will look at from an unlimited camera roll.
Yes. Extra shots for everyone are an add-on in the same purchase, so you can raise the limit if the party runs longer than planned.
No. The roll is sealed for every guest, the host included, until the reveal time. That is what makes opening it together worth doing.
The same setup works, with one difference worth thinking about: everyone who joins with the code can see the finished album, so at a children's party the code belongs with the parents rather than on the table.
Free for up to 5 guests. Beyond that it is one purchase for the event, priced by guest count and paid in the app. No subscription, and guests never pay.