Categorization makes your galleries easier to find for your visitors.

If you're looking for the functionality of a "sub-gallery" or "gallery-within-a-gallery," keep reading. At SmugMug we accomplish this using categories.

The Basics

Your SmugMug site is organized as follows:

You add photos to galleries and organize those galleries into categories (and subcategories if you choose).

So if you took photos from your daughter's birthday party, you might add them to a gallery you title "Mackenzie is 1!" and categorize that gallery as shown below.

When you make a new gallery, select a category from the drop-down list. We give you lots to choose from but if you don't like any of those, feel free to make one of your own.

The subcategory is optional and you can create a new one at this step too, if you wish.

Each category and subcategory also needs a NiceName, which will be displayed in the URL. No worries, though, we'll automatically fill in the NiceName for you. More help is here.

After you've saved your settings, the gallery will be displayed like this:

Want to create, rename, or delete Categories, Subcategories and their NiceNames?

Create a category at the same time you create a gallery. Or, you can edit, add or delete custom categories in your Control Panel. Click the Customize tab and then the Categories link.

From there it is a simple matter to name your category:

When you save this, the new category will appear in your Category dropdown lists. They will not appear on your homepage until you associate at least one gallery with it.

Note: Custom categories do not appear in SmugMug's browse function.

The NiceName is how your category will display in the URL, so it needs to be clean and under 30 characters. Use dashes, but no spaces, and leave out apostrophes, etc. We'll automatically generate a NiceName from the category name but feel free to change it to whatever you like best.

Hit Create when you're done.

You can also delete or rename custom categories that you've already created on this page. However, you cannot make changes to any of the categories that appear in our pre-loaded categories list.

Subcategories are created the same way as categories, except you click the Subcategories link in your Control Panel. After you've created your first subcategory, you'll be able to create them at the same time you create a gallery, if you'd like.

Moving a gallery to a different category or subcategory

You can change the categorization of any gallery at any time by selecting Gallery Settings from the Tools Menu.

Select a different category or subcategory for that gallery. You'll see a preview of the new URL as you type. When you're finished, just click Save! The gallery will now appear in the new location with the updated URL.

Gotcha: Category and subcategory NiceNames are each included in a gallery's URL. That means reorganizing your site will change your gallery links. To ensure your friends can continue to access the gallery via the link you send them, make sure you include the extra letters and numbers at the end of the URL (AlbumID and Key). For example:

Use http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Fanatical-customers/152400_HYYCN

Not http://cmac.smugmug.com/SmugMug/Fanatical-customers/

Note: If you need to recategorize many galleries, you will need to go into each gallery's settings and change the category. Quick Settings do not include categories so there is currently no way to reorganize your site in bulk.

Display categories (instead of galleries) on your homepage

When you have lots of galleries, displaying categories instead gives your site a cleaner look. See this help page for more info.

Ask a real person about this topic.