The client guide

For a studio's client and their family — whoever a catalogue was made for, whether the occasion was a naming ceremony, a birthday, a graduation, a wedding, an anniversary or something else. Published at /help/client — this file is the page; editing it and deploying is the whole publishing step.

• Signing in · Your catalogues
• Choosing your favourites
• Accepting a handover
• What you can do once it is yours
• Downloading · Starting your own
• Handing access back to your studio
• What your guests see
• Limits, and what is not built yet
• When something goes wrong

Signing in

Where: /get-started — pick "It's my event" on the two cards there. (The older /login address still works and redirects here.)

You get an account one of two ways:

• Your studio hands you one — see below. They set it up from their side; you set your own password the first time you sign in.
• You start a catalogue of your own — see Starting your own. This creates your account for you.

Forgot your password: "Reset it" on the sign-in form sends a single-use link.

Continue with Google, or Email me a link instead, appear below the password form — either signs you in without typing a password, as long as the address matches your existing account and is verified. Neither creates a new account on its own.

Your catalogues

Where: /my

Everything made for you, from any studio, in one place — one card per catalogue, each showing its status and who made it. A studio linking a catalogue to your email address is enough for it to appear here; nothing else to do.

Needs you, at the top, appears only when something does: a catalogue your studio has finished and wants to hand over (Accept), one that is paused because its term ended (Renew where the renewal is yours to pay, otherwise See why), or one whose renewal is simply available. Each line is one button; the section is absent on an ordinary day. Each card's badge says Live, Paused or Not published yet at a glance.

Choosing your favourites

Where: the catalogue's own page → Choose photos, once your studio has asked.

If your studio wants your help narrowing down which photographs matter most, their page for it shows up here — before your catalogue is even handed over, most of the time. It says how many they asked for, and by when if they gave a date.

Tap a heart to pick a photograph, or tap it again to let it go. You can pick up to the number your studio asked for; once you are there, picking a new one is refused until you free a slot by taking one back — nothing is ever locked, so you can change your mind as many times as you like. A date is shown as a guide, never enforced: nothing stops working once it passes.

This is not proofing — there is no way to leave a comment on a photograph, and nothing here is a print order. It is simply how your studio knows what you liked best.

Tagging your family

Where: the catalogue's own page → Tag people.

Add the people in your photographs — Nani, Mama, your college friends — and, for a wedding, whose side they are on. Then choose one and tap every photograph they are in; it saves as you tap, and tapping again takes it off. You can tag any photograph your studio has made live, before the handover or after it.

On the Parivaar theme, your guests then find everyone on a family tree and can see all of someone's photographs at once.

Adding your voices

Where: the catalogue's own page → Voice notes.

Choose a photograph your studio has made live, say whose voice it is, then record the story behind it — up to 30 seconds — or upload a recording from your phone. Listen back, then save. Up to three on each photograph; you can remove any of them.

On the Bolta theme, your guests hear them beneath the photograph.

Accepting a handover

Where: /my → Manage on the card that says "Ready for you to accept."

Your studio finishing a catalogue does not move it to you by itself — it is always your own click that does that. The moment they send it, you are emailed — who is handing over what, and one link. If you have never signed in, that link also sets your password, and lands you on Your catalogues with the handover first. Its card says "Ready for you to accept," and its own page has an Accept the handover button. No new password after that: you are signed in, and one click is the whole thing — real links to our Terms and Privacy Policy sit right beside it. The link in the email works for fourteen days; if it has run out, ask your studio to send the handover again.

Nothing changes before you accept — the studio can still see and edit it, exactly as while they were still building it. Afterwards it is fully yours (see below), and they cannot see inside it any more unless you open a window for them.

What you can do once it is yours

A catalogue a studio has handed over to you gives your console the same tools the studio had, minus the ability to hand it to someone else:

• add and remove films and photographs,
• rearrange and rename sections, change branding, change the theme,
• publish and unpublish,
• change privacy and the passcode,
• delete the catalogue.

If your studio sent you a PIN to review the catalogue, that PIN comes with it when you accept the handover. Your account shows it under Guest code, with a copy button, until you change it — keep it, set your own, or remove it so anyone with the link can watch.

Once it is yours, the page also shows your plan, how much storage you have used, and your catalogue's term — the same figures your studio always saw, split into films and photographs, and in hours at 720p and Full HD so "100 GB" means something. A Renew link sits right beside the term whenever you are the one who can actually use it (see Renewing, below) — it is never shown otherwise, so it is never worth clicking on the chance.

You cannot see any other catalogue on the platform, including ones another studio built for someone else, and your studio cannot see yours once it is handed over — unless you open a support window for them (see Handing access back to your studio).

A catalogue not yet handed over — one your studio is still building, or one you started yourself before it is published — shows here too, so you can watch it come together, but editing happens on the studio's side until it is handed to you (or, for one you started, from the moment you create it).

Renewing is on your own page: Renew on a catalogue's card in Your catalogues, where online payment is switched on (see Renewing, below) — for a catalogue you made yourself, and for one your studio made and handed over to you. Buying extra storage is not built yet — that is still done by hand.

Renewing

Where: Renew on a catalogue's card in Your catalogues — shown for a catalogue you made yourself, and for one your studio made and handed over to you.

The screen says where the catalogue stands (running, ending soon, in its grace period, or paused), what renewing does — twelve more months, and the exact date it takes it to — and lets you pay for it. If the catalogue has already ended, it is served again the moment the payment is confirmed; if it is still running, the twelve months are added after the current end, so renewing early costs you nothing. A receipt is emailed to you (amount before GST, reference, date).

• A catalogue your studio made and handed over to you, you can always renew yourself, at the list price, any time — whether or not your studio would too. It does not transfer anything: your studio is still recorded as the one who made your catalogue, and is still billed by default; you are simply also free to pay for a renewal whenever you want to, rather than waiting on them. If your studio's account has been closed, or it has not renewed your catalogue in the 45 days since its term ended, the screen says so as well — but that is no longer the only time the Renew button is there.
• Once handed over, renewing (or not) is between you and Mehfilbox — not your studio. Your studio no longer hears anything about your catalogue's term either, not even a courtesy copy — it genuinely earns nothing from a renewal on a catalogue it no longer holds, so we stopped copying them in. If a handed-over catalogue sits paused for 45 days with nobody renewing it, it goes dormant: you can still sign in and it is still there, but downloading is switched off until it is reactivated, and the page tells you to email support to sort it out. This is a shorter window than the ordinary 90-day one, and it is the one case where downloading is not available at any time — write to us before it gets there if you want to avoid it.
• We email you as your term gets close — thirty, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, ten, five, four, three, two and one day before it ends, and again a few times during the 45-day pause if it comes to that. Ten reminders rather than a couple, on purpose: once your studio is out of the loop, this is the one place you hear it from.
• A catalogue you were only linked to, and have not yet been handed, has no Renew button here — it is not yours to pay for until your studio hands it over.
• Deliver has no renewal. It runs for its own term and ends; write to us if you want to keep it.
• A catalogue you have not published has nothing to renew: its term starts the day you first publish.
• If your catalogue has paused, open its link. Guests see a page saying so; under its buttons it says Do you pay for this wedding? Sign in to renew it. (or birthday, or event — whatever yours was). Follow it, pick your door on the two cards and sign in, and you go straight to its Renew screen — for a catalogue you made yourself, or one your studio made and handed over to you.
• If online payment is not switched on where you are, the screen says so and gives an address to write to.
• Once a year, on the date of the occasion, you get a message with a link back to your film — once the catalogue is actually yours (a studio's own preview copy gets none). It is a keepsake, not a bill: nothing is charged and nothing is required, though it is also a natural moment to check your catalogue is still exactly as you left it.

Downloading

Where: signed in, open your catalogue and use Download at the top right — it appears only for you and your studio, never for a guest — or go there from your own /my console. Want just one film? Open it and look for Download next to Play and Share — no trip to the full list.

On the download page photographs show as pictures with their names, in a Grid or a List (your browser remembers which), so you can see which one you are saving. Download next to each saves the file; the button beside Photographs saves all of them as a zip — on a browser that cannot write a very large file in one go it says up to 3 parts and hands them over one after another, each a zip of its own. Back returns to the catalogue.

On a phone, or a slow connection, use Prepare a download underneath instead. We zip every photograph on our side, in parts of up to 1 GB, and email you a link to each part — usually within minutes, so you can close the page and download the next morning. The links work for 7 days and pick up where they stopped if a download is interrupted; after that you can prepare a fresh one. Up to three can be prepared in a week.

A passcode lets a guest watch. It does not let anyone download. Downloading — including original, full-resolution files — needs a sign-in: yours, if the catalogue is yours, or your studio's while they still hold it. If you open a passcode-protected catalogue's download page without being signed in, you are shown a sign-in prompt instead of a file list.

This is deliberate: a code shared at the event for guests to watch should not also be a way to carry off every original file forever.

The one exception: a handed-over catalogue that has gone dormant (see Renewing, above) cannot be downloaded until it is reactivated — the page says so and points you to support instead of a file list. Every other catalogue, whatever its state, can be downloaded at any time; this is the only case where that is not true.

Starting your own

Where: /my → Start a catalogue of your own

The same five-step wizard a studio uses, in its own shape for you: the occasion comes first — naming ceremony, birthday, graduation, engagement, wedding, baby shower, housewarming, anniversary, performance, corporate event, or Other, where you name it yourself — and the name and date fields that follow are labelled for it (The baby's name and Ceremony date for a naming ceremony, The couple's names and Wedding date for a wedding). There are no house styles to choose from, since those belong to studios, and there is no step for "the client's sign-in" — it is already you. Storage comes with the plan; there is no separate size to pick.

On the first step you choose its plan — Deliver, Keep or Cinema — and you can change it until you publish. A catalogue you start this way is a draft until a credit of that plan is added, by us or by a studio you ask — the same price a studio pays for each catalogue after its first. Nothing about the page, the films or the draft is lost while you wait; publishing works the moment a credit lands.

Where online payment is switched on, you can pay for it yourself: press Publish, and the panel that says the catalogue needs a credit has a Pay button with the plan's price (before GST) and a Discount code? if you were given one. You are taken to the payment page and brought back to a page that confirms it; the catalogue is then ready to publish. If you close the window after paying, nothing is lost — the plan is added when the payment is confirmed, and you are emailed a receipt (amount before GST, reference and date). Do not pay twice: if the confirmation is slow, the page says so.

Handing access back to your studio

Where: your console → the catalogue → the panel that opens a support window.

If you want your studio to fix or re-style something after they have already handed the catalogue to you, open a window for them — seven or fourteen days, your choice. Say what you need first — Theme change, Rectification, Additional storage, or Something else (with a line of your own words) — your studio is emailed the moment the window opens, with the reason, so nothing about it is a surprise on their side either. It closes on its own; there is nothing to remember to switch off, and nothing they do while it is open is hidden from you.

When they have finished, they hand it back. You are emailed, and your page shows Your changes are ready: have a look at the catalogue, then Accept the changes (you agree to our terms, as you did for the first handover). Their access closes when you accept. If they do not finish before the window closes, nothing is taken down — your catalogue stays exactly as it is, and you can ask again.

What your guests see

No account, ever. Whoever opens your link gets:

1. The profile gate — "Who's joining?" with four fixed choices — today a wedding's: Bride's side, Groom's side, Friends, Family. Never a free-text name. They can skip it.
2. The catalogue itself — billboard, rows, whatever was arranged.
3. A film opens in a modal, then plays on its own page.

Worth knowing:

• Resume works. Position is remembered; "Start over" abandons it rather than arguing.
• Sharing uses the phone's own share sheet (WhatsApp, on a phone) with a copy-link fallback. A film's link can carry ?t= so it opens at a specific moment — "watch from 7:08". A photograph's link opens that exact photograph.
• Watching on the television. In Chrome, Edge or an Android phone the player has a Cast button for a Chromecast or a TV with Chromecast built in (most Google TVs and Android TVs); in Safari it has AirPlay for an Apple TV, once Safari has found one. The phone becomes a remote — back ten seconds, play or pause, forward ten, stop — and stopping brings the film back to the phone where the television had got to. The phone and the TV must be on the same Wi‑Fi. Not yet: a TV without either, and a Fire TV stick.
• Photographs open in a viewer with a slideshow (3, 5 or 7 seconds a photograph, looping; it stops the moment you touch the viewer), a full-screen button and rotate for a photo taken sideways. Download appears only for you and your studio, signed in — a guest with the passcode watches; they do not keep.
• Likes on films and photographs are counted across every guest and shown to all of them, not kept private — per device, not per person, so signing in is never required to tap one.
• Languages. Guests can switch between the languages the catalogue was made with — English, and any others your studio chose — at any time. A catalogue made before that was chosen has English and Hindi.
• At the foot of the page, if a studio made your catalogue, guests read "Filmed by <the studio's name>". That line is the studio's credit and is not something you can edit or remove — it stays through the handover and every renewal. The "Presented by" line beside it is yours to write or leave blank. A catalogue you made yourself has no studio, so no such line.
• The catalogue can be kept on a phone or a laptop as an app, under the name it was made for, with its own icon (the initials on the catalogue's colours). After a few seconds a small banner offers it once — Install where the browser can do it, and on an iPhone the two taps to do it by hand. Anyone can choose Don't show again, and it is never shown inside the installed app. (A catalogue on its own web address does not offer this yet.)
• If a premiere date was set, guests see a countdown until it rather than the catalogue itself.
• Past the serving until date, guests see a renewal screen — never a broken link — before anything else. That date counts from the day the catalogue was first published, not from when it was created.

Limits, and what is not built yet

Storage is the only limit, set by whichever plan your catalogue is on, and a catalogue can be granted more than the default without waiting on your studio if they are no longer involved.

Your account (/my/account) lets you change your password and the email you sign in with — each asks for your current password first — and delete the account entirely.

Deleting your account is permanent, not a pause. It takes any catalogue that is yours alone (handed over to you, or one you started yourself) with it — erased for good, not archived. A catalogue your studio is still preparing, that you are only linked to, is not affected: it stays theirs, only your own link to it comes off. Download everything you want to keep first — the account screen links straight to it — before you type delete to confirm.

Not built yet, as of this writing:

• Paying for archive or extra storage yourself. Today this is a studio or platform action, done by hand. (You can pay for the plan of a catalogue you started yourself, above, and to renew one — see Renewing.)

When something goes wrong

Where else to look

Getting help

Support is in your account's side rail. Write to us there — Report a problem if something is broken — and we reply by email. A problem with the films or photographs themselves is often quickest with the studio that made your catalogue, if you know them.