SharePoint Document Issues

How to Create a Photo Gallery or Album Experience in SharePoint

Khadija Khan Oct 7, 2026 871 views

Question details

The user needs to create a structured photo gallery or album experience for large collections of images, including features like folders, metadata, filters, and social interactions such as likes and comments.

How to Create a Photo Gallery or Album Experience in SharePoint

Product: Microsoft SharePoint
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Organizing and displaying large collections of photos on a SharePoint intranet site while maintaining user engagement through metadata tagging, likes, and comments.
Observed behavior: Standard SharePoint Image Gallery web parts are insufficient for very large collections, necessitating the use of Picture Libraries, separate index pages, or integration with external apps like Teams or Viva Engage for advanced album features.

Before you start

Ensure you have Site Owner or Edit permissions in your SharePoint environment to create new libraries, build site pages, and add or configure web parts.

Solution 1Recommended

Organize Images Using a Picture Library

Use a SharePoint Picture Library to manage large photo collections with folders, metadata, and thumbnail views.

A Picture Library (or a Document Library configured with a Tiles view) is the best foundational tool in SharePoint for storing large amounts of images. It allows you to tag photos with metadata and group them into folders for better discoverability.

Create a new library

Navigate to your SharePoint site, click 'Site contents', select 'New', and then choose 'App'. Search for and add the 'Picture Library' app. If this app is unavailable, simply create a standard 'Document Library'.

Add metadata columns

In your new library, click 'Add column' to create tags for categories, dates, or events. This will help you sort, filter, and organize the photos systematically.

Set the default view to Tiles

Click the view options dropdown in the top right corner of the library (usually set to 'All Documents' or 'All Pictures') and select 'Tiles' to display the images as thumbnails, creating an album-like visual experience.

Solution 2

Create an Index Page with Separate Album Pages

Build a centralized navigation hub that links to individual pages for each specific photo album.

Solution 3

Integrate Viva Engage or Teams for Likes and Comments

Since standard SharePoint galleries may not support per-photo social features natively, embed a social Microsoft 365 application.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I find the Picture Library app in SharePoint Online?

In newer modern SharePoint sites, the specific Picture Library app is sometimes hidden or integrated into the standard Document Library architecture. You can achieve the exact same functionality by creating a standard Document Library and changing its default layout view to 'Tiles'.

Can I filter images dynamically inside a SharePoint Image Gallery web part?

The standard Image Gallery web part does not support dynamic metadata filtering. If you need to filter images based on tags or specific criteria, use the 'Highlighted Content' web part instead, which allows you to display and filter visual content dynamically.

How do I enable ratings on my SharePoint photos?

To enable ratings or simple likes directly within a library, go to your Picture Library or Document Library, click the 'Settings' gear icon, and select 'Library settings'. Under 'General settings', click 'Rating settings' and choose to enable either 'Likes' or 'Star Ratings' for the items in that library.

Document & File Issues