Answer
Do Clients View Galleries on Mobile or Desktop?
It depends on your clients, and you do not have to guess. Your studio records a mobile, desktop and tablet split for every gallery visit. This page explains where to read it, what it actually counts, and how to turn it into decisions about export and layout.
Updated September 2026
Short answer: the device your clients use is a property of your clients, not of the industry. A wedding couple texted a link at 9 pm and a marketing manager reviewing a campaign set at a desk will not behave the same way. The useful number is your own.
We do not quote an industry-wide mobile share on this page. We looked for an official statistics source that measures how people view photo galleries and did not find one we could cite. A general web-traffic figure from somewhere else would describe other people's websites, not your galleries.
What clientgallery.io gives you instead is your account's own device split. This page describes it as the product code does it, checked on 30 September 2026: where it lives, how each visit is classed, where the count can mislead you, and what to change once you know the answer.
Where to read your own split
Open Analytics in your studio. Further down the page, a ring chart headed What they viewed on splits your visitors into three groups: mobile, desktop and tablet.
The range buttons at the top change the period for the whole page, the ring chart included.
| Range | What it covers | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Today, Yesterday | One day | Checking a delivery you just sent. Too small to judge a habit |
| This week | Monday to now | A busy delivery week |
| This month (the default) | The 1st of the month to now | A first honest read, once a few galleries have gone out |
| This year | 1 January to now | The number to base layout and export decisions on |
| All time | Everything recorded | The long view, with no comparison period |
The split is account-wide. It adds up every gallery you have published. There is no version of it for one gallery or one client. The analytics dashboard is part of every plan, the free one included. The full list of what the dashboard measures is in client gallery with analytics.
What one unit in the split is
The chart does not count people. It counts visitor marks. Knowing exactly what a mark is stops you over-reading the result.
When a gallery page reports activity, the server makes a mark from a scrambled combination of the connection address, the browser's own description of itself, the date and the gallery. The studio sees only counts, never the mark or who it belongs to. The chart then counts distinct marks in each device group over the range you chose.
| Situation | How it lands in the split |
|---|---|
| One client opens one gallery three times in a day on one phone | 1 mobile |
| The same client comes back on three different days | 3 mobile, because the mark changes every day |
| They open two of your galleries on the same day | 2 mobile, because the mark includes the gallery |
| They star on the phone, then finish on a laptop | 1 mobile and 1 desktop |
| A relative opens a section's own link | Counted against the parent gallery, like any other visit |
| You open your own gallery while signed in to the studio in that browser | Not counted |
| You open it on your phone while not signed in there | Counted, like any visitor |
The activity that creates a mark comes from the open gallery page itself: opening the gallery, and viewing a photo, whether full screen on the classic page or on screen in the review room. The classic page also sends a time-spent report when it is left, unless the visit lasted under three seconds. The Shooting and Delivery pages of a staged gallery send nothing, so visits to them are not in the ring.
The practical reading: the chart is good at proportions and poor at headcounts. A client who keeps coming back on their phone every evening for a week weighs more than one who opened the gallery once on a laptop. That is arguably what you want to know, because it reflects where the looking actually happens.
How a visit is classed as mobile, tablet or desktop
Every browser sends a short line describing itself with each request. The server reads that line and applies three buckets, in this order. There is no fingerprinting and no screen measurement.
| Checked | If the browser's description contains | Classed as |
|---|---|---|
| First | iPad, Tablet, PlayBook, Silk, or Android without the word Mobile | Tablet |
| Second | Mobi, iPhone, iPod, Android, BlackBerry, IEMobile or Opera Mini | Mobile |
| Otherwise | None of the above | Desktop |
One consequence matters for the tablet slice. The label follows what the browser says about itself, not the device in the client's hands. A tablet browser that describes itself the way a desktop browser does is counted as desktop. So treat the tablet number as a floor, and part of your desktop number as possibly tablets.
The gallery layout works differently. The grid and the buttons respond to the width of the browser window, not to the device label. A tablet counted as desktop still gets the layout for its width.
Reading the result without fooling yourself
A split is only as good as the sample behind it. A few habits keep it honest.
- Wait for volume. One wedding with a busy guest list can swing a whole month toward mobile. Base decisions on This year once several kinds of job have gone out, not on a single week.
- Remember it mixes audiences. Because the split is account-wide, the couple and their eighty guests are in the same ring. If your guests mostly browse on phones and your couples mostly pick on laptops, the chart shows only the blend.
- Test while signed in. Your own checks are excluded only in a browser where you are signed in to the studio. Checking a gallery on your phone while signed out adds you to the mobile count.
- Early data may be missing. Visits recorded before device tracking was added did not carry a device, so they are in your view counts but not in the ring. If the ring is empty, the dashboard says so under the charts.
| What your split shows | What it most likely means |
|---|---|
| Mobile is clearly the largest slice | The first look, and most return visits, happen on phones |
| Mobile and desktop are close | Clients browse on the phone and come back on a computer to decide |
| Desktop is clearly the largest slice | Office or agency clients, or tablets describing themselves as desktop |
| A visible tablet slice | Clients who sit down to pick. The real share may be higher |
Turning the split into export and layout decisions
The point of knowing the split is to change something. These are the decisions it should actually drive.
If mobile leads.
- Cull harder. A long set is worse on a narrow screen than on any other device.
- On galleries that open in the classic page, split big jobs into sections in the studio. The client still gets one scrolling page, with a jump bar at the top that takes them straight to the ceremony or the reception. The review room shows photos one at a time in a single run, without section headings.
- Put a strong frame first. On a phone the first screen shows only a few photos before anyone scrolls.
- Keep the welcome note short. On the classic page it sits above the grid, and on a phone every line pushes the photos further down. In the review room it opens as a card the client has to close before seeing the photos.
- Tell clients in the delivery message to star on the phone and make final picks on a larger screen. What the phone experience is like, step by step, is in client gallery on a phone.
If desktop or tablet is a real share.
- Add one line about downloading. On the classic page, narrow phone-width windows show a download button on each thumbnail. From a window about 640 pixels wide up, that button is styled to appear on hover, and a touch screen has no hover. The Download all photos button at the top of the classic page is always shown when downloads are on, so point tablet clients there. In the review room, Download and Download all sit in the bar across the top at every width. The tablet side is covered in client proofing on an iPad.
- Expect closer inspection. A large screen shows more of each proof, so make sure the frames you publish are ones you are happy to have studied.
For export, whatever the split. The photos in the gallery are proofs, compressed in your browser when you upload and sized for fast viewing on a screen. You do not need a separate phone export. The finished files travel separately, as a full-resolution ZIP you upload per gallery. Each handoff stays live for 3 days and can be uploaded again at any time. If your split leans mobile, say in the message that the ZIP is a job for a computer.
What the split cannot tell you
| Question | Can the studio see it |
|---|---|
| Mobile, desktop and tablet across the account | Yes |
| The split for one gallery or one client | No |
| Which browser or phone model a visitor used | No. There is no browser breakdown |
| Where visitors are or where they came from | No. No geography and no referrer breakdown |
| Whether a given gallery has been opened | Yes, from the opened indicator on its studio tile |
So the split answers a studio question: what screen should I build for. It does not answer a support question about one client's handset. If a client says the gallery will not open on their phone, the split will not help, and the gallery will not load on my client's phone is the page to work through instead.
Sources
This page states no external figure and makes no claim about any device maker or browser vendor. We did not find an official first-party statistics source on gallery viewing by device that we could cite, so no industry-wide share is given.
Every statement about clientgallery.io was checked against the product code on 30 September 2026: the What they viewed on ring chart in studio Analytics, counting distinct visitor marks per device across the whole account; the range buttons from Today to All time with This month as the default; the daily one-way mark made from the connection address, the browser description, the date and the gallery; section links logged against the parent gallery; the studio's own signed-in visits excluded; gallery opens and photo views on the classic page and in the review room, time-spent reports of three seconds or more from the classic page only, and no reports from the staged Shooting and Delivery pages; the three device buckets and the words each one checks, in order; the gallery grid responding to window width; the classic per-thumbnail download button visible at phone width and hover-styled from about 640 pixels up, with Download all photos always shown when downloads are on; the review room's top-bar download buttons; the welcome card in the review room; the absence of per-gallery, browser, geography and referrer breakdowns; the opened indicator on each gallery tile; proofs compressed in the browser at upload; and the full-resolution ZIP handoff live for 3 days per upload.
Frequently asked
Do most clients view photo galleries on their phone?
It depends on your clients, so the reliable answer is your own. clientgallery.io records a mobile, desktop and tablet split across your account in studio Analytics. We do not quote an industry-wide figure, because we found no official statistics source on gallery viewing by device that we could cite.
Where do I see whether my clients use mobile or desktop?
In your studio, open Analytics and look for the ring chart headed What they viewed on. Pick a range at the top of the page. This month is the default; This year gives a steadier read for layout decisions.
Can I see which device one particular client used?
No. The split is account-wide and visitors are never identified. There is no breakdown by gallery, browser, location or referrer. The one per-gallery signal is the opened indicator on each gallery tile, which tells you whether that gallery has been opened.
Why might my tablet number look low?
Devices are classed from the description the browser sends about itself. A tablet browser that describes itself like a desktop browser is counted as desktop. Treat the tablet slice as a minimum and part of the desktop slice as possibly tablets.
Does the split count people or visits?
Neither exactly. It counts distinct visitor marks, and a mark is tied to one browser, one gallery and one day. A client returning on three days counts three times, and a client who switches from phone to laptop appears in both groups. Read it as proportions, not headcounts.
Do my own checks of a gallery skew the numbers?
Not when you are signed in to your studio in that browser, because those visits are excluded. If you open a gallery on a phone where you are not signed in, that visit counts like any other.
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