---
title: "Private photos & storage — Reviews for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "Keep review photos off public storage — private disks, short-lived signed URLs and signed srcset for every reader."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/reviews-for-laravel/private-photos
language: en
---

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# Private photos & storage

Set photos.visibility to private and every photo is served through short-lived signed URLs only — never a public one:

```bash
REVIEWS_PHOTOS_VISIBILITY=private
REVIEWS_PHOTOS_PRIVATE_DISK=local

# Or pin every photo to one explicit, non-public disk:
REVIEWS_PHOTOS_DISK=s3-private
```

Every reader resolves each photo by its own visibility. Public photos get their public (CDN-able) URLs; private photos get signed URLs — presigned on disks that support it, otherwise Media Library’s signed streaming route. That covers firstPhotoUrl(), photoUrls(), resolvePhotoUrl(), photoSrcset(), responsivePhotos() and ReviewResource:

```php
// With photos.visibility = private, every reader returns short-lived signed URLs.
$review->firstPhotoUrl();                  // signed, never a public URL
$review->photoUrls();                      // each one signed
$review->responsivePhotos();               // <img> tags whose src and srcset are signed

// Choose your own expiry for one link (variant, expiry):
$review->firstPhotoTemporaryUrl('', now()->addMinutes(30));
```

Signed links default to Media Library’s media.temporary\_url\_default\_lifetime (5 minutes). responsivePhotos() renders the same <img> tag Media Library would — smallest generated width as src, every width in srcset, sizes, alt, class and the blur-up placeholder — with signed URLs throughout.

## Where photos are stored

| photos.disk | photos.visibility | Originals | Variants |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| set | any | photos.disk | media.variants\_disk if set, otherwise photos.disk |
| null | private | photos.private\_disk (local) | photos.private\_disk — always, whatever media.variants\_disk says |
| null | public | media-library’s default disk (media.disk) | media.variants\_disk if set, otherwise media.disk |

Private photos never land on Media Library’s default public disk, where anything is reachable under /storage once storage:link runs — the signed URL is the only way in. If you set photos.disk explicitly, it is used for every original, so keep it non-public while photos are private — and if you also set media.variants\_disk, make sure that disk is non-public too, because variants follow it.

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