Trusted WordPress tutorials, when you need them most.
Beginner’s Guide to WordPress
WPB Cup
25 Million+
Websites using our plugins
16+
Years of WordPress experience
3000+
WordPress tutorials
by experts

How to Create a Photo Gallery with Albums in WordPress

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Are you looking to create a photo gallery with albums in WordPress?

With photo albums, your visitors can quickly navigate to the specific set of images they are interested in on your website. That helps to improve the user experience and can even lead to more sales if you sell photography or display product images in your albums.

In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to create a photo gallery with albums in WordPress without writing a single line of code.

how-to-create-a-photo-gallery-with-albums-in-wordpress-og

Video Tutorial

Subscribe to WPBeginner

Why Create a Photo Gallery With Albums?

While image galleries allow you to display multiple photos on a single page, albums let you show multiple galleries on a single page categorized by event, topic, location, and so on.

This is helpful for photographers, restaurants, travel websites, or just about any business that needs to showcase different categories of photos.

Albums help organize your photos into groups. This makes it easier for viewers to navigate through your collection and find specific sets of photos without scrolling through a large, unsorted gallery.

Also, if you want to share a specific set of photos with others, then creating an album makes this easy. Instead of sharing an entire gallery, you can direct people to the specific album that contains the relevant images.

That being said, we will cover step-by-step how to easily add a photo gallery with albums in WordPress.

Adding Photo Gallery With Albums in WordPress

If you want to create clean and organized albums in WordPress, then you will need a plugin. We recommend Envira Gallery since it is the best image gallery plugin for WordPress on the market.

Is Envira Gallery the right photo and video gallery plugin for you?

First, you need to install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin. For more details about installation, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will be asked to enter your license key on the Envira Gallery » Overview page.

Envira license key

Once you are done activating the plugin, you need to visit Envira Gallery » Addons.

From the Addons tab, you need to install and activate the ‘Albums Addon.’

Envira addons

Apart from the Albums Addon, you will also need to enable the Standalone option. Otherwise, it won’t work.

Head over to the Envira Gallery » Settings page. From there, click on the ‘Standalone’ tab and then check the ‘Enable Standalone’ box.

Make sure to click ‘Save’ at the bottom.

Envira standalone

Note: Before you can create albums, you will also need to make some image galleries. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create responsive image galleries in WordPress with Envira.

After you have created your image galleries, you need to visit Envira Gallery » Albums and click on the ‘Add New’ button.

Add new Envira album

Creating an album in Envira is similar to creating a gallery. The only difference is that instead of uploading images, you will drag and drop your galleries.

Start by giving your album a title. Then, you need to drag your galleries into the dotted box.

After adding your galleries, you will see a pencil icon for each gallery.

add new album

You can click on that icon to change the gallery title, caption, alt text, and cover image.

Once you’ve made your changes, just hit the ‘Save Metadata’ button.

save metadata

You can also choose how your albums appear by clicking on the ‘Configuration’ tab in the Envira album settings.

For example, it will show different grid-like displays, and you can choose the layout you like best.

configuration layout

If you want your albums to open directly inside a lightbox, then you can click on the ‘Lightbox’ tab. Then, just check the box that says ‘Enable Lightbox?’

Once the lightbox is enabled, you can change the image size, add transition effects, and toggle on other settings.

lightbox tab

The albums are also mobile-responsive, so they will automatically adjust to the mobile screen.

Once you are done configuring your album, simply click on the ‘Publish’ button to store your album settings.

Publish album

Below that, you should see the ‘Envira Album Code’ section.

Go ahead and copy the shortcode so that you can embed the album anywhere on your WordPress website.

envira album code

Your album is now ready, and you can add it to a post or page.

Simply create a new post or edit an existing one. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon and then select the Shortcode block.

shortcode block

Now, paste the code into the Shortcode block to embed your album into your page or post.

For more details, you can see our guide on how to use shortcodes in WordPress.

Finally, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button up top.

publish envira album

You can visit your website to see your album in action.

Depending on how you’ve configured your gallery and album settings, the album should look something like this.

photo gallery with album example

If you click on each photo, then a lightbox will appear, and you can click on the arrows to navigate through each gallery.

That’s all. You now know how to add a photo gallery with albums in WordPress.

lightbox example

Bonus: Adding a Responsive Slider in WordPress

While photo albums are great for organizing galleries, you may sometimes want to display images in a slider format.

A slideshow will allow you to show images or videos in different slides. Users can then use arrows to navigate between slides, or you can set it up to autoplay so they move between slides automatically.

This is a great way to highlight your latest YouTube videos, customer reviews, popular WooCommerce products, and more.

To do this, you simply need to download the Soliloquy plugin. Soliloquy is the best WordPress slider plugin that allows you to easily create slides using images from your media library.

Once activated, just add a new slider. Then, Soliloquy will allow you to upload your images and videos, along with giving each media item a title, capture, and alt text.

When your slider is uploaded, it should look something like this.

seedprod-slider-example

For an in-depth tutorial, check out our step-by-step guide on how to add a responsive slider in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a photo gallery with albums in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to switch from NextGEN to Envira Gallery in WordPress or see our expert picks for the best WordPress image compression plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us. Here's our editorial process.

Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

Get FREE access to our toolkit - a collection of WordPress related products and resources that every professional should have!

Reader Interactions

5 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Darcy says

    Loved your video. It’s exactly what I was looking for. The problem I ran into was that the addons look like you have to pay for them now. They looked free in the video. Is there a good plugin that you know of for multiple albums on a page? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Apologies, we were using the paid version of this plugin for this tutorial, unless I hear otherwise we don’t have a recommended alternative at the moment.

      Admin

  3. Anneke says

    Hi there,
    The video is very comprehensive, thank you. I want to download the stand alone albums add on but the only way I can do it is by paying for it. Is there a free way to display our pictures as albums? We are travellers on a budget!
    Many thanks,
    Tane and Anneke

  4. mats says

    Hallo,
    thanks for that tut!

    Is it possible that a user can upload his own photos and see only his own photos on his gallery site? Do i need specific albums for each user?

    thanks :)

Leave A Reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.