Photobooth Image Display

Shows photos taken by a photobooth on a page, where guests can download, delete or publish their photo to a gallery.

Description

It is made for the Photobooth Project, but can be used with anything that uploads pictures into a folder. The folder has to be in wp-content and the exact path must be configured in the block settings.

A photobooth uploads its photos into a folder on your site. Each photo is linked to a page, usually through a QR code with the file name in the URL (?image_name=IMG_0001.jpg). The "Photobooth Image Page" block shows that photo and lets the guest:

• Download the photo.
• Delete the photo, within the time set in the block.
• Publish the photo to a gallery. The photo is added to the media library as an attachment of the gallery post. A gallery block that uses the attached images as its source shows it right away.

A cleanup job checks the image folder every minute and deletes the photos that are older than the time set in the block. Published photos stay in the gallery.

Features

• Each action (download, delete, add to gallery) can be turned on or off per block.
• The label of the publish button can be changed.
• Automatic deletion after 1 minute up to 1 week. 0 turns it off.
• A photo can only be published to a dynamic gallery block (Use attached media function).
• Deleting a published photo also removes it from the gallery, if it got published.
• The block settings check the image folder and the gallery post, and warn about problems.
• Activity can be logged with Simple History
• Buttons use the button styles of your theme.

Safety

• Only JPEG and PNG images directly inside the configured folder are ever deleted. Other files, subfolders and symlinks are left alone.
• The image folder has to be inside wp-content. The uploads, plugins, mu-plugins, themes and languages folders can't be used.
• Delete and publish links are protected with a nonce and marked nofollow, so search engines don't follow them.

Guests don't need to log in. Anyone who knows the file name of a photo can open its page, so the photobooth should use file names that are hard to guess.

Installation

1. Upload the photobooth-image-display folder to /wp-content/plugins/ and activate the plugin.
2. Create a folder for the photos inside wp-content, e.g. wp-content/photobooth, and let the photobooth upload into it. Use a separate folder that only contains the photos.
3. Create a page and add the "Photobooth Image Page" block.
4. In the block settings, enter the path to the folder, relative to wp-content. The Photobooth Projects usually saves them in a subfolder (images/a-n).
5. Setup the photobooth to upload the pictures via FTP.
6. Point the photobooth's QR code or link to the page, with the file name in the image_name parameter, e.g. https://example.com/page-with-the-block/?image_name=.

Frequently Asked Questions

When are the photos deleted?

A cleanup job runs every minute and deletes the photos that are older than the time set in "Delete unpublished photos after x minutes". With 0, photos are never deleted automatically.

The job uses WP-Cron, which only runs when someone visits the site. On a quiet site photos may stay longer than set. To run it on time, disable WP-Cron with define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true); in wp-config.php and call wp-cron.php every minute with a system cron job.

If several blocks use the same folder, the longest time wins. If one of them is set to 0, the folder is not cleaned at all.

Are published photos deleted too?

No. The cleanup only deletes the files in the image folder. The published copy in the media library stays in the gallery until it gets deleted from media library.

Until when can guests delete their photo?

As long as the photo is younger than the time set for the automatic deletion. With 0, guests can delete their photo at any time. "Allow deletion" has to be on.

Why does the block show a warning about the folder?

The folder doesn't exist, is not allowed, or contains files that aren't JPEG or PNG images. Files that aren't images are never deleted, but the folder should only contain the photos.

Can the plugin be translated?

Yes. The text domain is photobooth-image-display. A translation template is in the languages folder.

Changelog

0.4 - 2026.10.06

• Delete and publish now run once per page load, so plugins rendering the content more than once (e.g. SEO plugins) don't show a wrong message
• Fixed a fatal error caused by invalid image names in the URL
• Fixed warnings for photos the web server can't read
• Fixed issues reported by Plugin Check

0.3 - 2026.10.03

• Added image download function
• Added "Allow download" and "Allow add to gallery" toggles to the block settings
• Added block text field to change the label of the publish button. The default label is now "Publish my photo in the gallery"
• Changed automatic deletion from hours to minutes (max. 1 week). 0 turns it off. Existing blocks with a custom value need to be updated
• The cleanup job now runs every minute instead of every hour
• Improved security for deletion of images

0.2 - 2026.10.01

• Added new field in the block settings to add images as an attachment to a gallery
• Published images can't be added twice, the publish button changes to "View the gallery"
• Deleting a published image also removes it from the gallery, after a confirmation prompt
• Added cleanup function to delete leftover images
• Added activity logging via Simple History
• Improved styling for frontend page, buttons now use the theme's button styles
• Fixed translations, security and escaping issues
• Requires PHP 8.0

0.1

• Initial version

Upgrade Notice

0.3

Automatic deletion now counts in minutes instead of hours. Check the setting in your blocks before updating, as the cleanup now runs every minute. The default publish button label changed, set your own label in the block if needed.