How long media is kept, and when it goes

What the window is

It is the period during which an album exists at all — separate from whether it is public, whether uploads are open and whether anybody is looking. The clock runs regardless, and it is anchored on the event date rather than on the day you created or paid for the event.

A date already in the past starts the clock at creation instead, so an album made the morning after still gets its full window.

1. Work out the date early. It is anchored on the event date, so you can calculate it the day you create the event.
2. Download in the week after the party. While people still care, and long before any warning.
3. Back the download up. The copy on your own disk is the only one without an expiry.

The grace period is the same length as the first warning, so nothing is removed without notice having been sent.

The warnings

Email goes to the address on your account 14 days, 3 days and 1 day before removal. If a run is missed you get 1 message covering the stages you passed rather than 3 at once, and nothing is removed without a warning having gone out.

They are a safety net, not a plan. An address you do not read turns the net into nothing.

What is removed

The media: photos, videos and voice notes, originals and display copies alike. That is what the window governs, and once it has passed the files are gone from storage rather than merely hidden from the album.

A record that a deletion happened is kept, which is a different thing from keeping the files.

Extending it

Moving to a longer tier lengthens the window, measured from the same anchor — so an upgrade shortly before expiry genuinely buys the difference between the 2 tiers. Moving the event date moves the window with it, in both directions.

Neither brings back an album whose grace period has already run out.

Ending it early

You do not have to wait. Deleting an event removes it and everything in it immediately, which is the right move once you have the files and want nothing left online.

Making the album private is the softer version: nothing is removed, but the link stops showing anything.

A timeline that works

Leave uploads open for a few days after the party, download everything in the first week, back that copy up somewhere, and only then decide whether the album stays online. Every step of that is reversible except the backup, which is why it comes before the decisions.

The warnings then become a formality rather than a rescue.