How to deliver race photos to participants

Upload the photos to an album, let recognition tag them by bib number and selfie, and give participants one place to search: the gallery link or the widget on your own website. Photos become searchable minutes after upload, and you decide before the race whether the gallery is public or private and whether photos are free or sold.

Before the race

1. Create the event and one album per location or per photographer (start, course, finish line), so you can publish, credit and track each set separately. Pick the event type carefully: it tunes recognition for the sport and cannot be changed later.
2. Add your valid bib number ranges and turn on bib and selfie recognition for the albums. Recognition is opt-in per album, and so is the timeline.
3. Set the gallery language in the Share dialog. Eight languages are available and the choice is stored in the link or the embed code; without it, the gallery follows the visitor's browser language.
4. Decide where participants will search: the share link, or the widget embedded on your event website with a two-line embed code that works in any CMS. Put the widget on your site before race day and enter that page as the Photos page URL in the event settings, so the "photos are live" email points to your page.
5. Decide access and price. A public gallery is open to anyone with the link; a private event asks participants to log in with bib number and date of birth, email, an access code or a selfie. Downloads are free by default; if you decide to sell photos, connect Stripe, set a price per photo with volume discounts and create a watermark for the previews.

Until you publish an album, the link and the widget show a Coming soon page. Turn on Collect emails there and participants can leave their address to be told when the photos are live; you send that email yourself, once, with Notify.

On race day

1. Get the photos in without a laptop in between. Photographers can send each photo straight from the camera over FTP, keep adding files to a shared Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive folder that MyRun syncs for 14 days, or use an upload link that needs no account. You can also drag and drop files or whole folders yourself. Duplicates are skipped and files over 30 MB are left out.
2. Recognition starts automatically for every album where it is enabled. The progress cards on the event show processed / total per type, and you can keep uploading while a batch is analyzed. A muddy or folded bib that the AI missed can be tagged by hand from the photo's tags panel.
3. Publish the album: switch on Published on its card, or Publish (N) to publish every draft album at once. Only published albums appear in the gallery. Photos are searchable minutes after upload, so an album published before the start fills up while the race is still running.

How participants find their photos

• Bib number. They type their number into Find My Photos and get every photo where that bib was read. Only numbers on your valid list match.
• Selfie. They upload a selfie and face recognition returns the matches, including photos where the bib is hidden by a jacket or an arm. For events without bibs, this is the only search you need.
• Timeline. They browse photos by day and hour of capture, useful for a finisher who knows their finish time.
• Share link. myrun.eu/share/event/<id> opens in any browser, no participant account. A per-album link lands straight on one race, distance or day (see How to share your gallery with a link).
• Widget on your site. The same search, timeline and purchases run on your domain; privacy, watermarks and prices behave exactly as on the link.

What to tell participants

The link, or the page on your site where the widget lives, is what you post on the results page, in the finisher email, on Facebook, Instagram and Strava, and in the WhatsApp groups. Say how to search and whether the photos are free. A message you can copy:

Your photos from [Event name] are online. Open [link], type your bib number or upload a selfie, and download your photos [for free / from EUR x per photo]. Not in the results? Try the selfie search, or browse the timeline by the hour you finished.

For a private event, add the login method ("log in with your bib number and date of birth"). If the photos will arrive later, post the Coming soon page instead and let people subscribe to the notification.

Good to know

• Private events work the same on the link and in the widget. Import the participant list from a CSV (bib + date of birth, email, email + bib, or access codes), or turn on selfie login and skip the list entirely. Per-participant flags give VIP guests free downloads of paid photos and show Restricted Access participants only their own photos.
• Watermarks are applied on the fly to the displayed sizes; your original files stay untouched, and recognition always runs on the unwatermarked version. You choose which sizes get the watermark, free downloads included, and buyers receive the clean file unless you switch on Purchased.
• Selling is optional. If you decide to sell photos, payments land in your own Stripe account; MyRun charges 0% commission, and the only deduction is Stripe's processing fee. Prices and the sales currency are set per event, volume discounts apply in the cart automatically, and you can pick up to 20 gift photos per event that every paid order receives.
• Data. MyRun operates in the European Union, offers a Data Processing Agreement to every organizer, and processes face data only to power selfie search for that event.
• Pricing is pay-as-you-go per photo with no subscription; the first photos are free, with recognition and 12 months of hosting included. The amount for your market and a cost estimator are on the pricing page.
• See it live: the EcoRun 2026 demo gallery shows bib search, selfie search and the timeline as participants see them.

Questions

How soon after the race can participants see their photos?

Minutes after upload. Each photo is processed as soon as it arrives, recognition runs on it, and it shows up in search once its album is published. With camera FTP or a synced cloud folder, photos can be live while the race is still running.

Do participants need an account or an app?

No. The gallery opens in any browser from the share link or on your website. A private event asks for a login (bib and date of birth, email, access code or selfie), but no account is created.

What if the bib is not visible in the photo?

Selfie search finds the participant by face, so a bib hidden under a jacket or an arm is not a problem. The timeline is a third way in: participants browse the hour they crossed the line.

Can I give the photos away for free and still protect them?

Yes. Leave the albums non-monetized and participants download for free. A watermark can cover the free download size if you want your logo or a sponsor's on every file, or stay on previews only.

Can the gallery live on my own website instead of a MyRun link?

Yes. Paste the two-line embed code into any CMS and the whole gallery, search, timeline and purchases, runs on your domain. The share link keeps working in parallel if you want both.

What happens to participants' face data?

Face data is processed only to power selfie search for that event. MyRun operates in the EU and signs a Data Processing Agreement with every organizer; the terms are on the Data Processing Agreement page linked in the footer.