Notifications

The bell in the top right is your personal message center. It collects everything that affects you directly: someone likes your photo, comments on it, mentions you with @, you unlock an achievement, a reward becomes redeemable, or a moderator changes your role. New notifications appear in real time – no page reload needed.

Bell ≠ Gallery updates

The bell shows personal notifications. It is not the same as the live Gallery updates banner that appears at the top of the gallery when new photos arrive in general. We explain the difference further below.

Finding the bell

The bell sits in the top right, right next to your profile menu – in the same place on computer and on phone.

On the computer: the bell in the top right, just before the avatar.

The bell also acts as a status indicator:

• No unread notifications: a grey outline bell.
• Unread notifications present: a filled bell in the event/brand color that briefly wiggles every few seconds to catch your eye.
• Red counter badge: the small red number on the bell shows how many unread notifications there are. From 100 onwards it shows 99+.

Phone

Computer

The bell shows you all your personal updates.

No bell visible?

The bell only appears once you have received at least one notification. A brand-new guest who has never triggered an event sees no bell at all. That is normal – it appears automatically as soon as the first event arrives.

Opening and reading the bell

1. Tap or click the bell. The Notifications dialog opens.

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   Computer

   

   Tapping the bell opens the list.

2. Below the title a summary reads “{count} unread messages”.

3. The list shows the newest notifications first. Unread items are highlighted: a brand-colored bar on the left and a small dot on the top right of the icon.

4. Scroll down to load older notifications – the list loads more automatically (10 per page). At the very end you see “No more notifications”.

5. If there is nothing right now, the dialog shows “No new notifications” with a bouncing bell.

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Computer

The notifications menu with the filter and items – here an unlocked reward with the Redeemable badge.

Opening is enough – everything is marked read

Simply opening the dialog automatically marks all notifications as read. The red counter badge disappears afterwards. There is no separate “Mark all as read” button – you do not need one. The items stay in the list; they just lose their highlight the next time you open it.

To close, tap Close at the bottom right or the X at the top of the dialog.

Tapping a notification – where it takes you

Every item is clickable and jumps straight to the right place:

• Like on your photo, comment on your photo, mention or reply → opens the slideshow with exactly that photo. For comment and mention notifications the comments are already open and the relevant comment is in focus.
• Achievement → opens the achievement dialog with the details.
• Role change → jumps to the gallery.
• Moderation notification → opens the slideshow with the affected photo – as long as it still exists. If the photo was removed, the item is not clickable.

Phone

Computer

A like or comment item opens the relevant photo in the slideshow.

Tip

More about the destinations: Slideshow, Likes & comments and Redeeming real rewards.

What you’re notified about

The bell covers many event types. Here is the full list with the displayed text and the trigger:

Event	Displayed text	When
Photo like	“<Name> liked your photo” · multiple: “… and {count} others liked your photo” · without name: “Someone liked your photo”	Someone likes one of your photos (multiple are grouped)
Comment like	“… liked your comment” · “… and {count} others …”	Someone likes your comment
Comment on photo	“… commented on your photo” · “… and {count} others …”	New comment on your photo
Mention (@)	“<Name> mentioned you” · “Someone mentioned you”	Someone names you with @
Reply	“… replied to your comment”	Reply to your comment
Achievement	“Achievement Unlocked!” (+ Redeemable chip when a real reward is pending)	You unlock an achievement
Role change	“You are now <Role> for this event!” (+ “Updated by <Name>”)	A host changes your role
Moderation: rejected	“Your photo was rejected” (+ “Reason: …”)	Your upload was rejected
Moderation: unpublished	“Your photo was taken down” (+ “Moderated by …”)	A photo was unpublished
Processing failed	“Photo processing failed” (+ filename/error)	Technical upload error
Report reviewed	“Your report was reviewed” / “Report dismissed”	Your content report was handled

For moderators and admins

Moderation notifications and some role notifications mainly concern contributors, moderators and admins. As a pure viewer you may never see them. You reach the moderation or admin area via the profile menu in the top right (the Management section – only visible with the matching role).

Phone

Computer

Moderators and admins reach their areas via the profile menu.

Filtering by type

With many notifications you can quickly find, say, only mentions or only likes.

1. Open the bell. Above the list you see the filter bar. On the computer it starts with “Filter:”, on the phone with just a funnel icon.

2. Tap one of the color-coded chips. Available – depending on what you have received: Achievements, Mentions, Replies, Comments, Likes, Role Changes and Moderation.

3. You can combine several chips. The Likes chip toggles both photo and comment likes; Moderation toggles all moderation types together.

4. To reset, tap Clear all (on the computer) or the trash icon (on the phone). This option only appears once at least one filter is active.

Note

Only the chips whose notification type you have actually already received show up. If you have never received a mention, for example, the Mentions chip is missing. If there are no notifications at all, the whole filter bar is missing.

Deleting a single notification

You can remove items from the list without the underlying photo or comment disappearing.

1. Via the X icon: at the right edge of every item there is an X (tooltip “Delete notification”). Tapping it swipes the item off to the left and removes it immediately.

2. Via the context menu: right-click (on the computer) or long-press (on the phone) on an item opens a small menu with Open and Delete notification.

3. While deleting, the footer briefly shows “Deleting…”.

Note

Deleting only removes the notification. The photo, comment or achievement behind it stays exactly as it was.

Everything live – but two separate mechanisms

PhotoGala updates in real time, but through two different channels that are easy to mix up:

• The bell shows new personal notifications (likes, comments, mentions, achievements …). They appear without a reload: the badge counts up and the bell wiggles.
• The live Gallery updates banner appears at the top of the gallery when new, updated or restored photos arrive in general. It has its own Refresh button and an X to close it, and it expands to show the list of changes. It may also point out that the sort order might have changed.

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Computer

New photos for everyone appear via the live banner in the gallery – not via the bell.

Tip

More about the live banner and the gallery: open the gallery from the bottom or top navigation bar. The bell stays responsible for your personal events.

Availability

• The bell only appears once you have received at least one notification.
• Which types can occur at all depends on the active event features: without comments enabled there are no comment, mention or reply notifications; without achievements/rewards no achievement notifications; moderation notifications only with moderation active.
• The bell itself is not an on/off switch in the guest menu – it simply follows the notifications that come up for you.

Note

Missing certain notifications? Then the host hasn’t enabled the triggering feature for this event (Settings → Features).

Troubleshooting

When something is off

• I don’t see a bell. You haven’t received a notification yet – it appears automatically with the first event. Or the triggering feature (e.g. comments) is not active in the event.
• The red counter is gone even though I didn’t tap anything. Simply opening the dialog automatically marks everything as read.
• I tap a notification but nothing happens. The related photo was probably removed (moderated or deleted media are not clickable).
• The badge shows 99+. You have more than 99 unread notifications; opening resets the counter.
• New notifications don’t appear. In rare cases a connection problem – reload the page.
• There are no filter chips. There are no notifications of those types yet.

Related topics

• Likes & comments
• Slideshow
• Redeeming real rewards
• Points & rewards
• Switching language – notification texts and numbers are language-dependent.