My Client Cannot Find the Download Button

A client gallery opens in one of two layouts. The download buttons sit in different places on each, so this is the first thing to settle.

The fastest check is to open the client's link yourself in a private browser window. You then see exactly what they see, including which buttons are showing.

These are the controls and their labels as the client reads them in English.

The full-resolution button appears only while a ZIP you uploaded is live. Videos in a gallery have no single-download control on either layout.

This is the most common report on the classic page. Clients expect a download button next to the photo they have open. The classic page does not put one there.

In the grid, the single-photo arrow is always faintly visible on a phone. On a wider screen it appears only when the pointer rests on the photo. A client on a laptop who never hovers over a photo will not see it. On a touch tablet it can be hard to find at all, because tapping a photo opens it full screen instead.

The full-screen view carries the filename, the buttons to move between photos, and the star and love buttons when picks are on. It has no download button. A client who opens a photo and looks for one there will not find it.

The fix: tell them to close the photo, point at it in the grid and click the arrow in its corner. Or send them to Download all photos under the gallery title, which takes everything in one ZIP. That route is covered in the answer on downloading every photo at once.

On a computer, the review room has a Full screen button. In full screen the top bar disappears, and every download button lives in that top bar. What stays on screen is a bar at the bottom with the arrows, the drawing tools, the comments switch and the selection buttons.

A client who switched to full screen to look at the photos properly has, without knowing it, hidden Download, Download all and Full-res ZIP.

The fix: leave full screen with the round close button at the end of the bottom bar. The top bar comes back with the buttons in it.

On a phone, the review room keeps its top bar in view, full screen or not. Its buttons wrap onto a second line when they do not fit.

A gallery has two different downloads. The proofs are in the gallery for as long as your account exists. The full-resolution files are a ZIP you upload yourself, and the client's download stays live for 3 days per handoff.

When that window ends, the full-resolution button is not greyed out and it shows no error. It is simply gone from the page. A client who saw it last week and comes back today reports a missing button, and they are right. The same happens if you never uploaded a ZIP for that gallery.

The fix: upload the ZIP again. Each upload starts a new 3-day handoff, and the button reappears with its countdown. Tell the client the window is short so they download it that day. How to build and hand over that file is in the guide on sending full-resolution photos.

Sometimes the client is not asking for the full-resolution set at all. They want to print, and assume the gallery proofs are too small. The proofs are compressed in the browser for fast viewing, so that instinct is right, and the full-resolution ZIP is the file to send.

A gallery can have its downloads switched off. The two layouts do not hide the same things when that happens.

The third row is the one that confuses clients. On the classic page, the full-resolution button stays visible while downloads are off, and clicking it gives a plain error page. If you are holding files back, do not upload the ZIP until you are ready to release it.

If you switched downloads off to wait for payment, nothing switches them back on when the client pays. There is no automatic unlock. You check the payment, then switch downloads on yourself.

A large gallery can be arranged in the studio into named sections, such as ceremony and reception. On the gallery link, the client sees them as headings on one page, with a jump-to bar at the top.

Each section also has its own share link, made for sending one part of a shoot to one person. That page is view-only. It has no ZIP, no single-photo download, no full-resolution download, no picks and no face search. It also has no link back to the full gallery.

A client holding a section link sees the photos and no download of any kind. From that page there is nothing to find.

The fix: ask for the exact link they opened. If it is a section link, send the gallery link and tell them which heading to jump to.

This cause applies only if your studio moves galleries through the Shooting, Review and Delivery stages. The client's page changes with the stage.

• Shooting: the client sees the shoot plan and a line saying photos are coming soon. There are no downloads on this page.
• Review: the client is in the review room, and the top-bar buttons described above apply.
• Delivery: a Download all button sits beside The gallery heading. The full-resolution files are listed in their own section, each with a Download button and its size. A single photo downloads when the client clicks it. On a computer, resting the pointer on a photo shows Click to download.

On the Delivery page you can also hold downloads until you mark the gallery paid. While they are held, Download all is gone and clicking a photo saves nothing. Each full-resolution file shows Pay to unlock instead of Download, with a line saying the client can browse the gallery now. Marking it paid is your step. Nothing does it for you when the client pays.

The fix: if the client is still on the Shooting or Review page, move the gallery to Delivery when the photos are ready.

Once you know the layout, one short message usually ends it. These are written to paste.

Classic gallery page: "Under the gallery title there is a Download all photos button that saves everything at once. To save one photo on a computer, close the full-screen view, point at the photo in the grid and click the small arrow in its corner. On a phone, the arrow is already showing."

Review room: "The download buttons are in the bar across the top of the page. Download saves the photo you are looking at. Download all saves everything. If you are in full screen, close it first, and the bar comes back."

Full-resolution files: "The full-resolution files are under the Full-resolution files button near the top. That download is live for 3 days, so please save it today, on a computer if you can."

If the gallery has a password, the client sees a password page first and no buttons at all until they enter it. That problem has its own answer on passwords that do not work.

This page states no external figure. Every statement on it describes clientgallery.io and was checked against the product code on 30 September 2026: the two client layouts and which galleries open in each; the Download all photos button, the per-photo arrow in the grid and its hover behaviour on wider screens, and the absence of a download button in the classic full-screen view; the review room's Download, Download all, Full-res ZIP and Pay buttons in its top bar, and that top bar being hidden in desktop full screen; the full-resolution button, its countdown line and its 3-day handoff; what the downloads switch hides on each layout, and the refusal message on the classic full-resolution download; the manual unlock after payment; the view-only section share link; and the Shooting, Review and Delivery client pages with their labels.