I've been working on this one for a while, and I'm really excited to finally share it. Sunshine Photo Cart 3.6 is a major update packed with features photographers have been asking for — guest favorites, gallery pagination, a brand new admin gallery navigator, GDPR privacy tools, and a lot more. On top of that, I'm launching 3 brand new addons for Sunshine Photo Cart Pro users: Cloud Storage, Gift Cards, and Video Sales. And still not everything, there were 8 addons getting updates from big new features to small enhancements.
There's a lot to cover, so here's what's in this release — click any section to jump straight to it:
Core Plugin Updates:
- Guest Favorites + Selection Tray
- Gallery Navigator
- Gallery & Image Pagination
- Privacy & GDPR Compliance
- Stripe Hosted Checkout
- Image Captions
- Separate Display Settings
- Other Improvements
New Addons:
Addon Updates:
- Digital Downloads 3.2
- Session Fees 3.3
- Exports 3.2
- Automated Email Marketing 3.1
- Discounts 3.1.7
- Analytics 3.4
- Lightbox 3.2
- Volume Galleries 3.2
Guest Favorites + Selection Tray
This is one I've been hearing about for years. Until now, your clients needed to create an account before they could start marking their favorite photos. That's friction — and friction kills sales.
Now, anyone browsing your gallery can tap the heart icon and start building their favorites list immediately, no account required. Their selections are saved for the session, and if they decide to create an account later, everything carries over automatically.
There's also a new Selection Tray — a persistent floating panel that shows your client's current favorites as they browse. It's always visible at the bottom of the screen, so they can see what they've picked without leaving the gallery. When they're ready, they can add all their favorites to the cart with a single click.
The result? More engagement, less friction, and more sales.
Read the full documentation on Guest Favorites & Selection Tray →
Gallery Navigator
If you manage dozens (or hundreds) of galleries, you know how painful it can be to find the right one in the WordPress admin. The new Gallery Navigator fixes that.
It's a modal that shows your entire gallery structure as a collapsible tree — parent galleries, sub-galleries, everything organized hierarchically. You can search across all galleries instantly, drag and drop to reorder, and see status indicators for password-protected, private, or expired galleries at a glance. Each gallery shows its image count and sub-gallery count right in the tree view.
For wedding photographers managing galleries by event, or school photographers with hundreds of sessions, this is a game-changer for staying organized.
Read the full documentation on Gallery Navigator →
Gallery Pagination
You can now control how your galleries and images paginate — and you can set them independently. Your main galleries list page can use one style while the images inside each gallery use another.
Three options for each:
- Numbered pages — traditional page numbers at the bottom
- Load more button — a single button to load the next batch
- Infinite scroll — automatically loads more as clients scroll down
A wedding photographer might want numbered pagination on their galleries list (so clients can browse by event) but infinite scroll within each gallery (so clients can seamlessly browse hundreds of photos). You've got full control now.
Read the full documentation on Gallery Pagination →
Privacy & GDPR Compliance
European photographers have been asking for better privacy tools, and version 3.6 delivers. There's a new Privacy settings tab where you can configure:
- Data retention periods for inactive accounts and completed orders — set a duration (days, weeks, months, or years) and old data gets cleaned up automatically
- Account erasure handling — integrates with WordPress's built-in "Erase Personal Data" and "Export Personal Data" tools
- Bulk personal data removal from orders when a customer requests deletion
Set your policies once and Sunshine handles the rest. No more manually tracking GDPR requests.
Read the full documentation on Privacy & Data Retention →
Stripe Hosted Checkout
Stripe users now have a choice: keep the inline payment form embedded on your checkout page (the default), or redirect clients to Stripe's hosted checkout page.
Most photographers will want to stick with the inline form — it's faster and keeps clients on your site. But if you'd prefer Stripe to handle the entire checkout experience on their end, you can switch with a single setting.
Read the full documentation on setting up Stripe →
Image Captions
You can now optionally display image captions pulled from your photos' EXIF metadata. There's a new "Caption" option in the Thumbnail Content setting, so captions can appear under each thumbnail in the gallery grid. You can also enable captions on the single image view page.
If you're already embedding captions in your files (many photographers do this during culling or editing), they'll show up automatically — no extra work needed.
Read the full documentation on Image Captions →
Separate Display Settings
Previously, your gallery list page and your images grid shared the same display settings. Now they're independent. You can set different column counts, pagination styles, and items per page for your galleries list versus the images within each gallery.
This means you can show 3 columns of galleries on the main page but 4 columns of images inside each gallery. Or paginate galleries with page numbers but use infinite scroll for images. Each view gets its own configuration.
Other Improvements in 3.6
- Honeypot spam protection on login, signup, and password reset forms — invisible to real clients, blocks bots without CAPTCHAs
- Faster image uploads — image processing now happens in the background, so uploads complete immediately even with hundreds of photos
- Image optimizer compatibility — Imagify, ShortPixel, and Elementor's Image Optimizer are now automatically prevented from interfering with gallery images
- Log file security — log files use randomized filenames and are served through authenticated admin routes instead of direct file access
- PHP error logging — new option to capture PHP errors to a separate log file for easier debugging
- SEO plugin compatibility — Yoast SEO and Rank Math no longer redirect gallery image pages when media pages are disabled
- Direct product details — if only one product is available, clients go straight to the product details instead of seeing a list of one
- Sub-gallery ordering — galleries with both sub-galleries and images now show sub-galleries first, then images below
New Addon: Cloud Storage
This is a big one. The Cloud Storage addon lets you offload your gallery images to cloud storage, freeing up your web server's disk space and bandwidth.
Nine cloud providers are supported out of the box:
- Amazon S3
- Google Cloud Storage
- Bunny.net (with integrated CDN)
- DigitalOcean Spaces
- Wasabi
- Backblaze B2
- Cloudflare R2
- Linode Object Storage
- Any custom S3-compatible service
Setup is straightforward — pick your provider, enter your credentials, select a bucket, and you're done. Images get uploaded automatically whenever you add photos to a gallery.
Already have existing galleries? There's a built-in migration tool with a progress bar that handles bulk-uploading your current images to the cloud. It even works with WP Offload Media if you're switching from that.
If you're running low on hosting storage or want faster image delivery through a CDN, this addon is for you.
If you were previously using the recommended 3rd party WP Offload Media plugin, you can seamlessly migrate to Sunshine Cloud Storage as it will automatically detect images that were offloaded with that plugin and still use them properly.
Please note: You are responsible for all storage costs at your provider as this add-on is only the software to connect your galleries to the storage provider and does not include any storage costs. Your images are not stored on servers controlled or managed in any way by Sunshine Photo Cart.
Read the full Cloud Storage documentation →
New Addon: Gift Cards
The Gift Cards addon adds a complete gift card system to your photography business. Your clients can buy gift cards that recipients redeem for prints, products, or digital downloads in any gallery.
Here's what's included:
- Preset or custom amounts — set denominations like $25, $50, $100, or let buyers enter any amount
- Immediate or scheduled delivery — have gift cards automatically sent right away or scheduled for a specific date (perfect for birthdays and holidays)
- Personal messages — buyers can include a custom message delivered with the gift card email
- Balance tracking — every gift card has a running balance with a complete usage log showing every redemption
- Checkout integration — recipients enter their gift card code at checkout, and the balance is applied automatically. Partial balances carry forward for future orders.
Gift cards are a fantastic way to let your clients' friends and family buy for them — especially around the holidays. The buyer doesn't need to know which photos to pick. They just buy a card, and the recipient gets to choose exactly what they want.
Read the full Gift Cards documentation →
New Addon: Video Sales
Photography is expanding into video, and the Video Sales addon lets you sell video clips and highlight reels right alongside your photos in the same galleries.
Videos appear in your gallery grid with a play button overlay on the thumbnail. Click through to watch a preview, then add to cart just like a photo. Purchased videos are delivered as digital downloads through the Digital Downloads addon.
Key features:
- Mixed media galleries — photos and videos side by side
- Browser-based thumbnails — thumbnails are generated automatically from your video, no server-side tools needed
- 7 supported formats — MP4, MOV, AVI, WMV, FLV, WebM, and MKV
- Cloud storage support — works with the new Cloud Storage addon for large video files
- Lightbox playback — videos play in the lightbox alongside photos if you use the Lightbox addon
If you're shooting behind-the-scenes clips, ceremony highlights, or event recap videos, you can now sell those alongside your photos without needing a separate platform.
Read the full Video Sales documentation →
Addon Updates
Alongside the core plugin and three new addons, I've also shipped updates to seven existing addons. Here are the highlights.
Digital Downloads 3.2
This is a big update for anyone selling digital files. Downloads now work seamlessly with the new Cloud Storage addon — if your images are offloaded to S3, Bunny.net, or any other provider, downloads are handled automatically using signed URLs.
Large downloads can now optionally be queued and processed in the background. You set a file count threshold — say, 5 files — and any download with more files than that is automatically sent to a background queue instead of streaming immediately. The client sees an instant confirmation that their download is being prepared, and when it's ready, they receive an email with a secure download link valid for 48 hours. This is especially helpful on servers with limited resources — big orders complete successfully without timeouts or memory errors, and your clients don't have to sit and wait. The default behavior is still the instant zip stream, so nothing changes unless you enable it.
There's also a new "Download all originals" link on the admin order page, so you can grab every full-resolution image from an order in one click.
Session Fees 3.3
The Session Fees addon now supports session locations. Create locations for your studios, parks, or venues and assign them to schedule entries so clients know where each session takes place.
When a session is booked, both you and the client now receive an iCal calendar attachment with the confirmation email. You can also download the .ics file from the admin order details, and clients can grab it from their receipt page. No more "wait, when was that session again?" emails.
The admin UI also got a refresh with its own top-level menu item for easier access.
Exports 3.2
The Exports addon got several new capabilities. Order exports now let you choose how line items are handled — combine them into one row per order, split into separate rows, or expand into separate columns. You can also export as CSV or XML, and there's a new VAT number field in order exports for photographers who need it.
If you're using the Cloud Storage addon, there's also a new option to import photos directly from a cloud storage folder into a gallery.
Automated Email Marketing 3.1
New trigger: "Assigned gallery users have not yet visited." Set up an automated email to remind clients who have been given access to a gallery but haven't viewed it yet. Great for nudging clients who forget to check their photos.
Discounts 3.1.7
You can now set a minimum cart quantity as a discount requirement — not just a minimum dollar amount, but a minimum number of items in the cart.
Analytics 3.4
Improved gallery hierarchy display in report tables and fixed timezone handling so all analytics events display in your local time correctly.
Lightbox 3.2
Updated for full compatibility with the 3.6 core plugin changes, including proper handling of the new per-gallery favorites settings.
Volume Galleries 3.2
Build galleries from images uploaded to your Cloud Storage provider as well as using already built intermediate images during import so they are not regenerated and use up your server resources.
Update Now
If you're already using Sunshine Photo Cart, update to version 3.6 from your WordPress dashboard (Plugins > Updates or Dashboard > Updates). For Pro users, the new addons are available in your WordPress Admin > Sunshine > Addons or you can download directly in the Downloads section of your account.
If you're new to Sunshine, you can download the free version and start building your client galleries today.
