Zenfolio forcing archiving on all accounts.

[NorthernFocus]

Dan,

Things like uploading a new image will re-start the clock. I don't believe altering text will. In their notice, Zenfolio listed a few things that would count as "modifying", but they were kind of vague. Even so, it doesn't take long to accumulate a bunch of galleries. I have landscape, wildlife, some travel photo's, sports (baseball, softball, soccer, volleyball), JROTC competitions, High School Extra-curricular activities, and a locked folder with prom and homecoming pictures of young ladies with their dates.

I don't know off of the top of my head how many gallieries I have, but it is a bunch. I don't want to have to modify each gallery one by one; and no - you can't modify en-masse. Has to be done one at a time according to the Zenfolio FAQ on this issue.

I do have all of these images stored on a HD and processed in LRc. I can recreate them if Zenfolio archives them. However, if they stick with this plan, I will probably cancel my account. It is due for renewal; I have until August 22nd to decide.

I agree it is ridiculous. In reality most of the galleries that I've set up for grandkids sports etc get hits for a couple of weeks after the event and then sit dormant. So as infuriating as it is to be forced to do this in most cases it's probably not a real issue. But as a matter of principle it's enough to push me away. For the past couple of years I've been wanting to move but procrastinate to the last minute and then it's simply easier to re-up the account.

Another thing that frustrates me with Zenfolio is contantly being pestered to buy more services etc. I pay for a pro level account and know what I want from it. I don't need nor want to be bothered with advertising etc trying to convince me to buy more services. So this recent change will likely be the final straw that motivates me to move on.

I have a grand fathered account but they've gradually closed the price gap with their current pricing so that is no longer a significant consideration.

 

[DanCarr]

Ok, folks, thanks for your patience. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a complicated situation.

I have spent a few hours today writing up what I discovered. You can find the write-up here.

Of particular note: galleries linked in your site menu on August 14th will be grandfathered into a protected status and never be archived. That's three days from now! It would be prudent to add some galleries to your menus now...

Also, note that this whole archive thing does not affect all Zenfolio users. If you subscribed before 2021, it does affect you. If you subscribed in the last couple of years, you are probably (I wish I could say certainly) using what they call their new Zenfolio platform. This platform is unaffected by these changes and you won't have been emailed about them. If you're not sure which platform you are using, I have included a graphic in the blog post that should help you identify the platform you're on. If you're still not sure, contact support.

 

[frdjohns]

Ok, folks, thanks for your patience. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a complicated situation.

I have spent a few hours today writing up what I discovered. You can find the write-up here.

Of particular note: galleries linked in your site menu on August 14th will be grandfathered into a protected status and never be archived. That's three days from now! It would be prudent to add some galleries to your menus now...

Also, note that this whole archive thing does not affect all Zenfolio users. If you subscribed before 2021, it does affect you. If you subscribed in the last couple of years, you are probably (I wish I could say certainly) using what they call their new Zenfolio platform. This platform is unaffected by these changes and you won't have been emailed about them. If you're not sure which platform you are using, it's best to talk to their support.

Well, that is unfortunate. I appreciate the time you put into this issue, but after having read your entire article/post/blog the information that we already had has not changed, with the exception of some rationalizations for the change.

Bottom line is Zenfolio is breaking faith with its oldest customers due to Zenfolio's inability to manage the volume of images that they have stored. Which they accepted payment for. It would make some sense if there was a way to migrate from Zenfolio classic to their new platform (which costs significantly more), but there is not. The only real solution is to accept having your images archived automatically (yes, you can keep up to 20 galleries) and maintain a much smaller footprint or find another platform. In my case I could cancel my account, and then after a period of time open a new account and rebuild my meager site. If that is my only recourse, it makes no sense to open an account with the company that callously created the need for me to do all that work in the first place. There are other platforms available.

I guess for me, some of my dissatisfaction comes from the way I feel about this process. There was not much notice given (at least for me) before forcing this change. I have to decide this week or next if I will maintain my account or not. It is clear that Zenfolio believes they can do whatever they want, with no regard for their customers. It's equally difficult to believe this is the only solution available to them. It is also difficult to believe this is not motivated by money, with a desire to move away from the Zenfolio classic model with all of its grandfathered customers still paying lower rates than the modern platform. They could have just been honest and charged us more, and I probably would have payed it.

Again, thanks for the time and effort you put into this Dan.

At the end of the day, Zenfolio will move into the future with whatever business model they see fit. Unfortunately it looks like that future will hold one less customer.

 

[DanCarr]

I certainly don't disagree with some of what you are saying. However, I genuinely don't believe that they aimed to push people to the more expensive new platform. If that were the case, they would have built a tool to migrate people over and offered that as the primary solution for those who didn't want to deal with the hassles of archiving. In my hour-long call with them, they never once mentioned that people should switch to the new platform to sidestep this issue. In fact, it was only 3/4 of the way through our call that I even realized the new platform was unaffected by the Archive feature. The way they were talking, they fully expect to still maintain tens of thousands of people's sites on the old platform, which is why it continues to expand its storage needs at such an alarming rate.

To your point about the option to pay more: I did ask them why they didn't roll this feature out in a tiered manner, only forcing it on the lowest-priced plan. My understanding from their answer was that it wouldn't really solve the problem. Even if higher-tiered customers paid more to avoid the Archive feature, the huge amount of data occupied by those higher-tiered customers would still cause the back-end slowdown of the whole platform. Likely, the people on the cheapest plan have fewer images in the database as those are typically the lighter users. Thus, if only their images are forced into an Archived state, it wouldn't make much of a difference to the site performance issues they are trying to solve.

I'm not trying to say any of this is good news; just relaying what I learned. I'm sure you won't be the only one who feels like you do.

 

[Replytoken]

My understanding from their answer was that it wouldn't really solve the problem. Even if higher-tiered customers paid more to avoid the Archive feature, the huge amount of data occupied by those higher-tiered customers would still cause the back-end slowdown of the whole platform. Likely, the people on the cheapest plan have fewer images in the database as those are typically the lighter users. Thus, if only their images are forced into an Archived state, it wouldn't make much of a difference to the site performance issues they are trying to solve.

Thank you for all of your research. For me, it would have helped if they had explained what the problem was up front and how this solution solved it. They did a good job of burying the lead, and your post was probably the best explanation. And while I do understand the issue, they also lost points for giving such short notice. Granted, they are not deleting files, but some of us have packed schedules, and a few weeks notice is not really much time. Also, the lack of a migration plan is another miss. They knew this years ago, but pretty much kept it silent until now. All in all, a failure to communicate well. I am sure there bottom line will not be heavily impacted by those who leave, but I suspect the negative PR from folks will not help with their attempts to acquire new customers in a more crowded market.

--Ken

 

[DanCarr]

This is a thought for those who are saying they didn't give much notice and now feel rushed to make a choice. I don't disagree with the notion. But here's what I see as your best options in the next few days:

#1 - If you have time, log into your account this weekend and make a small change to every gallery you have. If you don't want any changes, make a change, save it, and then change it back. This will prevent any galleries from being archived on the 14th and will buy you a considerable amount of time to analyze a longer-term solution. If I understand it all correctly, it will buy you 14 months.

#2 - If you don't have time to do that this weekend, your untouched galleries older than 3 years will be archived on the 14th. Set aside a little time this week to log into your account, open the new archive section, and then hit the restore button on each one. This will put them all back online and, again, buy you some time to decide.

#3 - As I mentioned earlier, any galleries you have linked in your menu on the 14th will be grandfathered into a protected state. So a further option is to log in this weekend, create a new drop-down menu in your main menu, and add every existing gallery you have to that menu. I'm not sure if there is a limit. This will also buy you some time to figure this out. Although it should be pointed out, I am not sure if those galleries maintain their special grandfathered state if you subsequently remove them from the menu at a later date. I didn't think to ask that question. Still, that's a question that can be asked of support next week. The key thing right now would just be to get them into the menu.

 

[TiggerSLT]

DanCarr - Thank you for taking the time to write and post your summary after talking to Zenfolio! Your information is helpful and filled in some gaps.

I understand the issue of storing so much growing data on an older platform I also believe there is a high % of galleries that are not updated or viewed after a period of time and keeping those photos "always available" is an overhead. I assume the "14 months" before archiving is based on real data with a little buffer.

I appreciate Zenfolio keeping their long-term customers on "classic Zenfolio" features and pricing - and this new archive solution may be the compromise Zenfolio needs to continue doing so. It should work for many customer, though not all (including me).

What I don't like is:

• Zenfolio marking auto-archiving as an exciting new "feature". I'd prefer more transparency on the purpose, and acknowlegement these changes aren't optimal for all customers. (I know... that won't happen.)
• Zenfolio not giving their customers much time to react to this change.

But it was time to act before most of my galleries are archived on 8/14. I followed DanCarr (and Zenfolio's) advice and just completed a combination of (1) setting up to 20 galleries to not archive, (2) adding links to some galleries from the site menu, and (3) modifying the remaining galleries with an "unnecessary file" (which is the thing I didn't want to do). For (3), I created a .jpg with a message (Thank you for visiting) and my logo - and exported from Lightroom to Zenfolio (via Jeffrey Friedl plug-in) over and over for every remaining gallery. This seemed like the quickest way to "modify" the galleries today, with little time to look into other options.

Now I've bought myself some time to either...

1. Keep managing the auto-archive rules and timelines. (Removing the unnecessary file I added today will be more painful next go round. Hopefully there will be other options to help.)
2. Move to another website before my account renews in June '24.

 

[Butlerkid]

Many years ago, SmugMug faced a tipping point. Upgrade their platform software or be unable to provide adequate service in the future. They chose to upgrade the platform and many, many people got angry about the needed changes and left. However, the results of that upgrade resulted in a FAR better service for the members who stayed and the new ones who came afterwards. I stayed with SM and LOVE it!

Sometimes change is hard....but necessary.

Having said that, I hope this move doesn't migrate to SM!!!!!

 

[NorthernFocus]

I agree that Zenfolio handled this poorly and tried to put make is sound like they're doing us all a favor. And maybe ultimately they are as @Butlerkid suggested. But I think this is more of an emotional issue than a real one. The information panel for each gallery shows how many visitors have been there. It's easy enough to check how many have been there since created. Or maybe since last time you checked. But how many of us actually pay attention. Of course the visitor count doesn't show us how many times images have been linked on social media etc but it does require a visit to the gallery to create the link. My own experience is that even when I've covered high school sporting events, canine sports, etc, the number of people who actually visit the gallery is pretty low. And those within the first couple of weeks. On average people's attention spans are extremely short.

 

[DanCarr]

is based on real data with a little buffer.

This is what I was told, yes. This wasn't arbitrary.

Thank you for taking the time to write and post your summary

You're very welcome.

Zenfolio marking auto-archiving as an exciting new "feature"

Yeah, I agree. And that's partly what spurned me to draw some attention to this. I'm not even a current Zenfolio user. This is also why I don't like the fact that they call it a tool. A tool is something you can choose to use. This is forced on you, and, in fact, there doesn't appear to be a way to archive a gallery manually. If it was all so great for the user, surely they would have added a way to manually archive a gallery you already know you no longer need...

 

[flashpixx]

Thanks @DanCarr for taking the time to contact Zenfolio and place the article on your Blog. Great website BTW!
Just spent too many hours adding a photo to galleries and selecting a couple of galleries to never be archived.
I do wonder of Zenfolio's decision to allow RAW format files on what is really a photo hosting platform, rather than a storage platform, was a great idea if disk space was going to be an issue.
I do wonder therefore how may users are using Zenfolio just to store their files - the archiving "feature" many not even bother those users.

 

[Butlerkid]

This is what I was told, yes. This wasn't arbitrary.

You're very welcome.

Yeah, I agree. And that's partly what spurned me to draw some attention to this. I'm not even a current Zenfolio user. This is also why I don't like the fact that they call it a tool. A tool is something you can choose to use. This is forced on you, and, in fact, there doesn't appear to be a way to archive a gallery manually. If it was all so great for the user, surely they would have added a way to manually archive a gallery you already know you no longer need...

Outstanding article on shooting from a boat! Having just returned from the Khutzeymateen, I saw several familiar locations in your images! LOL! The toughest thing for me was stabilizing when shooting. I never did get very good at it!

Thanks also for sharing so much information regarding this recent change on Zenfolio! Thankfully, both hubby and I have are work hosted on SM. But this does bring back memories of the angst and member rebellion of SM's major change many years ago.

 

[Heinphoto]

One part of this that still isn’t making sense is why it takes 12 hours to restore an archived gallery. Did the provide any explanation about why this process takes so long? This would seem to imply that it isn’t an automated process (which seems a little ridiculous).

Thanks for you work on this!

 

[NorthernFocus]

I do wonder of Zenfolio's decision to allow RAW format files on what is really a photo hosting platform, rather than a storage platform, was a great idea if disk space was going to be an issue.
I do wonder therefore how may users are using Zenfolio just to store their files - the archiving "feature" many not even bother those users.

First and foremost it is a sales platform. And geared towards event type sales. Since galleries can be set up to allow downloading the RAW files I assume it is so that clients can download them in situations where a contract calls for delivery of original files. Besides with only 2GB of storage allowed that doesn't account for enough RAW files to make it a useful bulk storage medium.

One part of this that still isn’t making sense is why it takes 12 hours to restore an archived gallery. Did the provide any explanation about why this process takes so long? This would seem to imply that it isn’t an automated process (which seems a little ridiculous).

They don't say it takes 12 hours. They say "up to 12 hours". So could be minutes or could be 12 hours. Sounds like they're just giving themselves wiggle room. But even if it is 12 hours I don't get the angst. So no one has done anything with the gallery for 14 months but now all of a sudden there needs to be instant access?

 

[Commodorefirst]

Well, I for one am rather upset about this, I use It to display images from both recent and the past 15-20 years or more. I do nto upload full size raw files, but only low res 1000 to 1500 on the longest sides. All for linking and displaying online. I have about 110 galleries, with image quantities from just a few to sometimes a 80-90 or several hundred or more. I have thousands of low res files in all of these galleries in many eclectic genres. From dance, aviation, astronomical, wildlife, landscape, abstract, knives, watches, vacations of my own from past years, and I want access to all of them. I, pay for that, or I used too. I do have dance event photos and other event galleries from many years ago, but I link to those images frequently. Same with my many varieties of wildlife galleries, done by species,

A screen shot of one area of galleries:

What about an old kingbird from 2007, so I,can no longer link to this image

Or displaying a kesteral hover from 15 years ago

Neither of these galleries have had changes in years, and now they are gone, and to post a simple post or image on a forum, I have to take away another gallery, wait up to twelve hours, just to display an image.

What if I am talking aviation photos on the Nikon Cafe, and want to show an image from 2006? Or a link to one:
https://wadedowdy.zenfolio.com/img/s/v-10/p817245797-4.jpg

or this winter shot from a blind in 2010, in a gallery of small birds, that isn’t part of my normal top bird image galleries, but still a keeper I may want to link to.

no easy access any more?

I am posting these allegedly the day before they will be archived by Zenfolio. In the future you may not see them because of broken links.

I am not a happy camper. I do not want to upload all these low res files to another site, it feels like 15-20 years of my life is gone.

My total useage or space is very low, even with my 110 galleries because I upload small res files on purpose. I live in Rural Missouri, and cannot upload gigs of data, because of upload speed or time.

 

[Heinphoto]

They don't say it takes 12 hours. They say "up to 12 hours". So could be minutes or could be 12 hours. Sounds like they're just giving themselves wiggle room. But even if it is 12 hours I don't get the angst. So no one has done anything with the gallery for 14 months but now all of a sudden there needs to be instant access?

For the way I primarily use Zenfolio what you say has validity - I mostly use it for delivery of photos from events and for publication - and archiving those makes sense after some period of time.

However for those folks who have a large number of galleries that generate print and other sales, it’s a much bigger deal. Just because you haven’t made any changes to a gallery doesn’t mean that customers don’t visit it and potentially make purchases. Unfortunately, customers are conditioned for instant gratification, so if they visit a gallery link and have to wait for some undefined time up to 12 hours to view it and make a purchase, they may not return.

 

[Molesworth]

Ok, folks, thanks for your patience. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a complicated situation.

I have spent a few hours today writing up what I discovered. You can find the write-up here.

Of particular note: galleries linked in your site menu on August 14th will be grandfathered into a protected status and never be archived. That's three days from now! It would be prudent to add some galleries to your menus now...

Also, note that this whole archive thing does not affect all Zenfolio users. If you subscribed before 2021, it does affect you. If you subscribed in the last couple of years, you are probably (I wish I could say certainly) using what they call their new Zenfolio platform. This platform is unaffected by these changes and you won't have been emailed about them. If you're not sure which platform you are using, I have included a graphic in the blog post that should help you identify the platform you're on. If you're still not sure, contact support.

Dan,
Thanks for taking the time and effort to look into this more thoroughly than the communication from Zenfolio. I'm not a heavy Zenfolio user and this change did get me to do a bit of work on my site. So that's not all bad. If this change improves performance, mainly image load times, that would represent an improvement for me at least.
Thanks again for your post.

 

[Commodorefirst]

Had a temp solution suggested by a friend, I added a period at the end of all of my galleries, renaming them, so in essence I have used or had activity in the gallery recently. I shall see if this works for now.

 

[frdjohns]

Had a temp solution suggested by a friend, I added a period at the end of all of my galleries, renaming them, so in essence I have used or had activity in the gallery recently. I shall see if this works for now.

Wade, my situation is very similar to yours and like you, I am not a happy camper. It is why I started this thread to inform everyone of what Zenfolio was up to.

I'm not willing to play Zenfolio's version of "Wack-a-mole", jumping from gallery to gallery trying to make changes that will meet Zenfolio's ambiguous standard for a "change".

I understand that some are not bothered (or affected) by this while others continue to try to rationalize Zenfolio's behavior. Doesn't work for me..

I made the painful decision to delete all of my photographs from my zenfolio site while I still have a modicum of control and have requested Zenfolio cancel my account.

 

[NorthernFocus]

Had a temp solution suggested by a friend, I added a period at the end of all of my galleries, renaming them, so in essence I have used or had activity in the gallery recently. I shall see if this works for now.

I tried renaming galleries and that doesn't change the modified date that shows up in the information panel. The only thing I've found that changes the modified date is either adding or removing an image file. That can be done by upload, delete, move, or copy. Unfortunately the site won't allow uploading a file to multiple galleries at the same time. But it is a bit quicker to copy from one gallery to another rather than uploading to each one.

 

[Commodorefirst]

Wade, my situation is very similar to yours and like you, I am not a happy camper. It is why I started this thread to inform everyone of what Zenfolio was up to.

I'm not willing to play Zenfolio's version of "Wack-a-mole", jumping from gallery to gallery trying to make changes that will meet Zenfolio's ambiguous standard for a "change".

I understand that some are not bothered (or affected) by this while others continue to try to rationalize Zenfolio's behavior. Doesn't work for me..

I made the painful decision to delete all of my photographs from my zenfolio site while I still have a modicum of control and have requested Zenfolio cancel my account.

I will be heading that way probably, but I need time to think and ponder. I need to figure out how to get all my low res files onto a new site, only probiem, they are only at Zenfolio. After I upload the low res files, I don’t keep them, only originals on my cpu. Redoing 3000 + images from print files to low res, nope not doing that yet.

 

[Commodorefirst]

I tried renaming galleries and that doesn't change the modified date that shows up in the information panel. The only thing I've found that changes the modified date is either adding or removing an image file. That can be done by upload, delete, move, or copy. Unfortunately the site won't allow uploading a file to multiple galleries at the same time. But it is a bit quicker to copy from one gallery to another rather than uploading to each one.

Well, how about that, a 30 kb grey square appeared in all my galleries. Appreciate the heads up, I did not notice that the period did not change modified date. Now all galleries show a modified date of August 13.

 

[flashpixx]

For the way I primarily use Zenfolio what you say has validity - I mostly use it for delivery of photos from events and for publication - and archiving those makes sense after some period of time.

However for those folks who have a large number of galleries that generate print and other sales, it’s a much bigger deal. Just because you haven’t made any changes to a gallery doesn’t mean that customers don’t visit it and potentially make purchases. Unfortunately, customers are conditioned for instant gratification, so if they visit a gallery link and have to wait for some undefined time up to 12 hours to view it and make a purchase, they may not return.

This is exactly my issue with the change Zenfolio has made.

 

[NorthernFocus]

I will be heading that way probably, but I need time to think and ponder. I need to figure out how to get all my low res files onto a new site, only probiem, they are only at Zenfolio. After I upload the low res files, I don’t keep them, only originals on my cpu. Redoing 3000 + images from print files to low res, nope not doing that yet.

You can download entire galleries. When you click the tab on an image the drop down menu gives you the choice to download the image or download all images. If you download all it packs them in a zip file.

Last year when my subscription was expiring I contemplated a change and downloaded all of my galleries. It's pretty quick and easy.

 

[abhart]

I'm not a "backcountry" photographer, but very frustrated with Zenfolio, and felt a little relieved when I saw this thread and realized I wasn't alone. Maybe someone here has some answers or suggestions...

Does anyone know how you can tell which of your galleries have been archived?

I've been going through some older galleries, and have encountered some where only a few thumbnails display, with blank placeholder frames for many others. There's also a message at the bottom of the screen that says "Thank you for your patience while we retrieve your images". I've seen that in the past though, so I don't know if this relates to a gallery that's been archived, or just website performance issues (which isn't uncommon with Zen in my experience).

Also -- based on a very small sample -- I think they may retrieve thumbnails first, and larger images some time later. With some of those galleries that were missing thumbnails, when they eventually appears (apx 3-4 hours later), most of the larger size files were still missing. It's like you have to pull up every photo in the gallery to get the large version out of the archive.

When the gallery has been fully retrieved, is it your understanding that it will remain active (not archived) for another 14 months?

There are a couple of factors that really frustrate me about this situation.

1. I shoot a number of annual events. Attendees enjoy looking at earlier editions of their event -- in some cases I've been shooting the same event for over 20 years. Those older editions don't get much traffic, but I resent having Zenfolio taking them off-line and as far as I can see, giving me no practical way of managing them. Maybe I'm just missing something.

2. I rely heavily on nested collections / galleries. This makes it easy for customer to find what they're looking for, but it greatly increases the total number of galleries I have. (Case in point, one good sized horse show can generate 40 separate galleries.) At this point -- after 5-6 years on Zen, I think I have something around 750 individual galleries. So any "solution" that involves going into a gallery to make a small edit to avoid going into archive oblivion, or just checking the visitor count is impractical. And the limit of 20 is hopelessly inadequate when you have 750 galleries. (And BTW, these 750 galleries contain "web sized" images, typically 800 px on the long side -- no raws, no videos. So the total storage shouldn't be very high.)

NorthernFocus mentioned "downloading the gallery" in this thread. Is there a way to do that for ALL the galleries? I typically don't enable downloads, but this might be a solution if I don't have to go into each gallery to request a download. I have all my original photos, but it would be nice to get them from the site organized by the gallery name.


frdjohns said it perfectly:

"Bottom line is Zenfolio is breaking faith with its oldest customers due to Zenfolio's inability to manage the volume of images that they have stored. Which they accepted payment for."


Well that's it for now. I'm not hopeful there are any near term solutions, but it feels good to have vented for a bit... Thanks!