How to Download All Photos From Pixieset

The phrase "download all photos from Pixieset" covers two situations that have nothing to do with each other.

The first is a client with a gallery link. That person wants the finished photos from their wedding, their session or their event, and the download button is right there in the gallery. Everything they need is documented, and the rest of this page walks through it.

The second is a photographer with an account full of collections built up over years. That person is usually asking because they are leaving, or because they want a backup, or because they just realised their only copy of something lives on a platform. The honest answer for them starts further down, under the photographer section.

Pixieset documents the client download experience in a help article that was last updated on 21 September 2026. The steps it gives are these.

1. Click the Download icon at the top right of the gallery.
2. Enter an email address and the download PIN, if one applies.
3. Click Next.
4. Confirm the sets, the download size and the destination.
5. Click Start Download.

Pixieset states that the download begins processing immediately, and that you can leave the browser window open or leave and be notified by email once the photos are ready. That email is the reason the flow asks for an address: a big gallery takes time to package, and the link comes to you when it is done.

A full gallery download arrives as a ZIP file. Pixieset states that large collections may be split across multiple ZIP files, so if you get two or three archives rather than one, nothing has gone wrong. Unzip all of them into the same folder.

Downloading a single photo follows a similar flow, and Pixieset states that you do not have to re-enter your credentials for later images in the same session. The article that documents these steps covers the desktop browser; Pixieset documents downloading on mobile devices separately.

The single most common reason a client gets stuck is the PIN. Pixieset states that it "automatically sets a 4-digit download PIN for collections." It is on by default. It applies to photos and to videos.

If you are the client and you do not have the PIN, you cannot guess your way past it. Ask the photographer. They find it, and can switch it off, under Collections, then the collection, then Settings, then Download.

If you are the photographer and clients keep emailing you about a code they never received, that default is why. Either send the PIN with the gallery link every time, or turn it off for that collection and rely on the gallery password instead.

The email address is part of the documented gallery download flow, and Pixieset states that email tracking can additionally be required for individual photo downloads. So a client cannot normally take a whole collection anonymously.

The confirmation step asks for a size, and the choice matters more than it looks. Pixieset publishes these options.

Read the high resolution row carefully. Pixieset states 3600px maximum, or original size on upgraded accounts. Whether you get the untouched original therefore depends on the photographer's plan, not on your choice at the download screen. If you need the true original file for a print lab, ask the photographer directly rather than assuming the download gave you one.

If the download button is missing, greyed out, or refuses you after a few files, it is usually a setting rather than a bug. Pixieset documents these controls on the photographer's side.

• A cap on how many photos can be downloaded from a collection, either across all visitors or per individual contact.
• Downloads restricted to specific contacts. Pixieset states that with this on, "the download limit will apply separately to each contact."
• A cap on how many times a download PIN can be used overall for gallery downloads.
• Downloads restricted so only specific email addresses can download at all.
• A choice of which photo sets in the collection are downloadable.

None of these are things a client can change. If you hit one, the message is a conversation with the photographer, not a workaround.

Here is the part that makes this page worth writing. We searched Pixieset's own help centre on 23 September 2026 for a photographer-side bulk export of originals. No article documents one. Pixieset's "Downloads" article is explicitly about the client download experience.

We are not claiming the capability does not exist. We are stating that Pixieset publishes no article on bulk-exporting a whole account, and that you should therefore not plan a migration or a backup around a feature nobody has documented for you.

What Pixieset does document on the owner side is narrower: downloading a client's Favorites list. The route is Activities, then Favorite Activity, then the three-dot menu and "Download all," or "Send as download" to email yourself a download link. Filenames can also be exported to a Lightroom Copy List. That is a favourites list, not a whole collection of originals and not an account export, and it should not be generalised into one.

On retention, Pixieset states that collections "will stay online for as long as you have an active subscription, or until you delete them yourself; they do not expire (unless you use our Auto-Expiry feature)." It also states that if you cancel your subscription, collections are kept for a period of time before being deleted. No length is published for that period, so do not budget against a number you cannot cite.

With no documented account-level export, the workable approach is collection by collection, using the same client-side download described above, and started while the subscription is still live. Pixieset ties collection availability to an active subscription and publishes no retention figure after cancellation, so the order of operations matters more than the speed.

The sequencing, the collection CSV that gives you an inventory to tick off, and the checks to run before you cancel anything are laid out step by step in how to export your galleries from Pixieset. The single thing worth repeating here: a gallery platform is a delivery surface, not an archive. Your originals should live on storage you own, with a second copy somewhere else, whoever is hosting your galleries this year.

The download link in that notification email does not last forever, and the moment after it arrives is the only easy time to fix a problem. Four checks, in order.

1. Unzip every archive into one folder. Pixieset states that very large collections may be split into multiple ZIP files so all the images are delivered without interruption. Two or three archives is normal; two or three archives with one still sitting in your downloads folder is how a set ends up incomplete.
2. Count the files against the gallery. Open the collection in the browser and compare its photo count with what you unzipped. If the numbers disagree, a set was probably excluded: Pixieset lets the photographer choose which photo sets are available to download from.
3. Check one file's pixel dimensions. High resolution means a 3600px maximum unless the photographer is on an upgraded plan, where Original size is available. Your operating system's info panel will tell you in two seconds whether you have a 3600px copy or the original.
4. Put the folder somewhere that is backed up. A download sitting in a Downloads folder on one laptop is not a copy of anything. This is the whole point of doing the download in the first place.

If a photo is missing rather than a whole set, go back to the photographer rather than re-running the download. Download caps, contact restrictions and PIN-use limits are all photographer-side settings, and none of them announces itself to the person downloading.

If you landed here because you are moving your own galleries to clientgallery.io rather than downloading someone else's, there is a whole-account import, and the one thing to know before you plan around it is what it carries. It takes Pixieset's largest web size, not your original file. It moves your client-facing galleries with their titles, passwords, photo order and sets, and it is not a backup of your masters. Those stay on your own drives.

The steps, the bookmark, what the import reads and what it leaves behind are set out in full in how to export your galleries from Pixieset, which is the page written for that job.

• Pixieset, "Your client's download experience", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003594212 , article updated 21 September 2026.
• Pixieset, "What is my client's Download PIN", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/43979216610445 , article updated 15 September 2026.
• Pixieset, "Collection download settings", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003795572 , article updated 22 September 2026.
• Pixieset, "Limiting free downloads and other restrictions", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003008091 , article updated 23 September 2026.
• Pixieset, "Downloads", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003810212 , article updated 21 September 2026.
• Pixieset, "Do my Collections expire", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002975012 , article updated 16 September 2026.
• Pixieset, "How do I download my client's Favorites", help.pixieset.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003003931 , article updated 16 September 2026.
• Absence of a photographer-side bulk export article: Pixieset help centre article search API queried on 23 September 2026, no article found documenting a whole-account export of originals.
• clientgallery.io product facts (import behaviour, proof and ZIP handling) verified in our own code, 23 September 2026.