Sharing Photo Links

for John C

I have often wondered about this, and now I know.

If someone with a Mac creates a public link to a shared Photos album, that link can be accessed by a Windows PC or Linux PC without doing anything special.

Links to a private shared album require that the end user have an Apple ID and they may need to use iCloud for Windows.

Sharing a public link exposes the album to the world if the invited user posts it publicly. Sharing a private link does not, and only invitees by their email address (Apple ID) from the owner can have access.