During a shoot

What to expect while tethering — progress, keeping the app open, and dropouts.

By the CloudTether team · Updated

Once a session is running, each shutter press shows up in the app within a second or two and moves through downloading → uploading → delivered.

Keep the app open

On iPhone, iPad and Android, keep CloudTether open in the foreground while you shoot — mobile devices limit sustained background work, so keeping it on screen runs transfers reliably. A pocket-mount or hot-shoe phone mount keeps it open and out of the way.

If the connection drops

Photos queue on the phone and resume automatically when the connection returns — nothing is lost. The app keeps a local copy of each frame until it's safely delivered.

Battery

Because each photo uploads once and fans out server-side, battery use is modest. For full-day events, a small USB-PD power bank is a good idea.

Find past shoots and unsent shots

Where earlier work lives in the app, and how to send shots that haven't gone anywhere yet.

Not sure which you have? 1.1 has the tabs Home · History · Deliver · More; 1.0 has Home · Playback · Destinations · More. What changed in 1.1

  1. CloudTether 1.1 History tab listing past shoots as receipts with dates, photo counts, a strip of thumbnails for each shoot and Open in Dropbox links

    1Open History

    Tap “History”. Every shoot is listed newest first as a receipt — date, place and name, how many shots, which services they went to, with a strip of its newest shots (tap one to view it) and “Open in Dropbox” (or your service) links. Shots with no destination are under “Not sent yet”.

  2. CloudTether 1.1 shoot screen: 1,228 photos in Dropbox and 1,228 in Google Drive with Open links, shots on the way and Change where shots go

    2Open a shoot

    Tap a shoot to see how many shots reached each service (with “Open” links), the shots still “On the way” — kept on the phone until delivered — and “Change where shots go”. For shots in Not sent yet, select them and tap “Send these to…”.

  3. CloudTether 1.1 full-screen photo viewer showing one wedding photo with the shoot's thumbnails along the bottom

    3View a shot

    Tap any shot to open it full screen; swipe through the shoot, or pinch to zoom into the full-resolution photo. Video clips show a play button. Share and Print are at the top.

  4. CloudTether 1.1 remote folder browser on an SFTP server showing a shoot's folder with a Selects subfolder and delivered photos marked

    4Browse an FTP or SFTP folder

    For an FTP, FTPS or SFTP destination, tap “Browse” on the shoot to look through the server's folders without leaving the app: this shoot's files are marked, and you can step up, open folders or copy the path. Nothing on the server is changed.

  5. 5End a shoot

    When you end a shoot, a delivery receipt shows how many shots went to each service, with Open links and “Share receipt”.