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High-quality photos and video are essential for attracting guests to your property. This guide explains how to add and manage photos and a cover video in Haven.
Looking for the top of your page — hero layout, which photo shows first, shifting a photo under the title (focal point), overlays, or the medallion? Those live behind Page → Home in the editor, not in Photos & Spaces. Start with Property Site Editor Overview, then Hero Layouts and Positioning Your Hero Photos.
The first eight positions in your gallery can feed fixed places on the home page; every photo also appears in the gallery grid, where guests browse by space and then by tag:
Where (property site): Property editor → Space tab (left sidebar) → Photos & Spaces → drag to reorder; each tile shows its slot badge
Each tile's badge names the place that photo appears on your page right now:
A badge names a section only when your page has that section. If your page has one story section, only one tile is badged Story 1; the next two tiles are Gallery photos. A photo strip is only named when it is on the page: there is no Parallax 3 without a location, and no Parallax 4 unless Experiences show on your home page. A story section you chose your own photo for (under Home → Sections) does not read the gallery, so no tile carries its badge.
The page preview beside the grid is drawn from the same facts. It shows one row per story section and only the strips your page has, in the order your sections are in. Click a photo in the preview to choose what goes in that spot.
Badges update on their own after you add or remove a section, feature a review, or change your location.
If you hand-picked hero slides, chose the Collage layout, or set a cover video, the top of your page does not come from your lead photo. The photo grid then starts with a pinned Hero tile that shows what your page opens on: the first slide of your carousel, the first photo of your collage, or your cover video. A badge in its lower left says which kind of hero it is, for example Carousel · 3 slides.
The Hero tile is not part of your gallery order, so it cannot be dragged. Click it to open Hero settings, where that hero is chosen. Your Lead photo is the next tile; it still feeds your listing card, social sharing, and the first story section.
You can upload a video to use as the hero background on your property page. When a cover video is set, it replaces the cover photo in the hero section and plays automatically (muted) for a cinematic first impression. A single hero video loops by default, fading back to the start. Turn Loop off in Video settings to play once and settle on the last frame. In a carousel of videos or photos, Loop is unavailable — each clip plays through and then the next slide takes over. Turn on Allow audio so guests hear the clip when the page opens. Some browsers still start muted until the guest taps; the speaker control stays on the video either way. That control belongs to the hero clip; on a computer the Mute button at the top right of the page, beside the language and currency buttons, silences the clip as well. A separate page soundtrack — music that plays whether the hero is a photo or a video — lives under Home → Hero → Page audio. See Page Audio.
A video walkthrough is a click-to-play tour that appears immediately above the photo gallery. Guests tap play; the video is not muted, does not loop, and does not autoplay. That is the opposite of Lead photo, Story, Parallax, and hero clips, which autoplay muted (a single hero clip loops by default; turn Loop off to ease out and hold the last frame).
Where (property site): Property editor → Space tab (left sidebar) → Photos & Spaces → Create → Video walkthrough
Do not add a space named "Video Walkthrough". Spaces are places (Kitchen, Bedroom), not roles.
This animates one photo on your website. A video ad is a reel on Marketing → Creative: scenes can stay stills or be converted to AI video, and a voiceover is optional. See Making Social Posts and Ads.
To animate a still — turn a photo into a short cinematic clip — use Create video version. That is not Carousel Swipe or Cross-fade; those only change how slides change.
Two paths in Photos & Spaces:
Both open the same job picker. Choose Create video version.
From the orb on a photo tile, the new version takes that photo's place in your gallery, so the slot it fills on your page (Cover, Story, Parallax, or a gallery position) keeps the upgraded picture. Your original is not deleted: it moves to Archived, where you can restore it any time. A video made this way is shown to guests in that spot.
Work runs in the background (usually 15–60 seconds; videos 1–6 minutes). You can reload the page, close the tab, or keep editing — the job keeps going and the result lands on its own. The orb on that tile spins while the job runs, including after a reload. At busy times a job can wait longer for its turn. It stays in line and still finishes; you do not need to start it again, and closing or dismissing another AI run does not cancel it.
When it finishes, the tile gets a Review badge. Click the badge to compare: photos open a before and after slider, videos play beside the original photo. Choose Keep this version, or Use the original to put your photo back in that spot.
To undo an AI version, click the Siri orb on its tile. A small gold dot on the orb means the AI version is the one on your page. The orb opens the AI menu with an Original | AI switch under the photo, labelled On your page. The filled side is the one on your page. Click Original to put your photo back in that exact spot: an AI video moves to Archived and the still it was made from takes its place, and an AI photo goes back to the photo it was made from. Click the AI side (for example AI twilight or AI video) to bring the AI version back. On an AI video the orb opens just this switch, since a video cannot be made into another AI version.
Both versions are always kept, so switching never costs a new run and never deletes anything. A reverted AI video waits in Archived until you switch back. The same switch is in the photo's editor (click its tag) and on the photo's sheet in the mobile editor. In the By space view the tiles don't show it; click the photo to open its editor.
Every AI video in your gallery is on your live page, in the position the gallery shows it. What you arrange in the grid is what guests see. To take a video off your page, archive it.
This is separate from the Photos AI panel (Upscale for several photos at once).
The same orb sits on the photos in your page's live preview (Layout tab). It always works on the photo you are looking at, and the new version replaces that photo when it is ready — the preview refreshes on its own, and the job keeps running if you leave. On a Cover, Story, or Parallax photo (or the hero when it follows your gallery order) it is exactly the tile orb: the gallery photo is replaced, the original moves to Archived, and the tile gets a Review badge. On a section photo in Page Content the result replaces the section photo in place and does not add a gallery tile; the photo it replaced is kept in Archived too. See Collection Site Design. To put the clip at the top of the page, use the Siri orb on a hero carousel photo instead. See Positioning Your Hero Photos.
Where (property site): Property editor → Space tab (left sidebar) → Photos & Spaces → Create → AI Videos (pick a photo), or the Siri orb on a photo tile
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Create enhanced version | Vivid colour, cleaner and sharper. Replaces the photo; the original moves to Archived. |
| Create sharper version | Extra pixels so the photo stays crisp when shown large. Replaces the photo. |
| Create twilight version | Classic dusk light. Replaces the photo; the original moves to Archived. |
| Create wider version | Extra sky and sides so a narrow photo fills a landscape frame. |
| Create video version | A short cinematic clip. Takes the photo's place; the photo moves to Archived. |
Looking for social reels — the vertical videos with headlines, music, and several scenes? Those come from the Creative studio on Marketing → Creative, not from this gallery. The studio builds from every photo on the listing by default, and lets you choose the scenes yourself or swap any scene's photo from your library. See Making Social Posts and Ads.
Enhanced, Twilight, and Wider versions need the restore engine on the environment. If those three cards are dimmed, Sharper and Video versions still work.
A gallery enhance does not add a hero slide. To create a version for the top of the page, use the orb on Home → Hero. See Positioning Your Hero Photos.
Anywhere you can upload media — the Photos & Spaces gallery, hero slides, section and card images, logos, check-in photos, promo videos, email images — you can also click From library to pick from Marketing → Media Library instead of your device. The picker shows your uploads, finished creatives (stills and reels), site photos, and logos, with search and kind filters — including Videos when the library has both stills and clips. Choose one or several and they are added exactly as if you had uploaded them.
Removing a photo from a page does not throw it away. A file you uploaded stays in Marketing → Media Library inside that listing's folder, under Gallery photos (or Logos for a mark), so you can add it back from From library.
By default the gallery grid on your page is a living gallery: every few seconds a tile crossfades to another photo from the same room, and hovering a tile peeks at yet another one, with the caption following the photo shown. If you would rather each tile keep the photo you placed there — hover simply zooms it and shows its own caption — turn off Shuffle gallery photos under the ··· button at the right end of the gallery toolbar. See Gallery Hover & Shuffle.
Archiving takes a photo or video out of your gallery and off your page without deleting it. Click the × at the top right of a tile (Archive or delete) and choose Archive. On a photo synced from a connected PMS, which can only be archived, the button is a box icon that archives in one click. Haven also archives a photo for you in a few cases: when an AI version takes its place — made from the orb on a gallery tile, from the orb on a hero slide, or from the orb on a photo in your page's live preview (a Cover, Story or Parallax photo, the hero, or a section photo) — when you choose Use the original on an AI video, and when your PMS no longer has the photo on the listing. While a PMS is connected, its photos can be archived but not deleted.
To see what you archived and bring something back:
Where (property site): Property editor → Space tab (left sidebar) → Photos & Spaces → Archived (N) button under the gallery, beside From library (also under ··· More photo tools at the right end of the gallery toolbar) Applies when: The Archived button appears only while at least one photo is archived. Full property editor only — the phone editor has no Archived view. A PMS photo that is no longer on the listing upstream can be archived again by the next sync; add it back in the PMS to keep it.
Deleting is different: × → Delete removes a photo for good, and it will not appear under Archived.
A collage (mosaic) is built from photos in your gallery. If every photo it uses is deleted or archived, Haven takes the collage out of your gallery so your page never shows empty tiles. The collage itself is kept in the Mosaics panel in Photos & Spaces. If you did it yourself while signed in, your Home shows a task, Your collage lost its photos: click Edit collage, open the collage in the mosaic editor, fill its tiles with photos you still have (or restore the archived ones), then click Add to gallery to put it back. A collage whose tiles you never filled, or one made only of videos, is left where it is.
Every photo can be in one space and carry any number of tags. They answer different questions:
Renaming, deleting or merging a space never changes a photo's tags, and editing tags never moves a photo between spaces.
On a phone, tapping any photo on your page opens a photo tour: one long page with a section per space, in the order each space's first photo appears in your gallery, and a row of shortcuts at the top. Photos in no space sit in a final Other section. Tapping a photo in the tour opens it full screen, where guests swipe between photos, pinch or double-tap to zoom, and swipe down to return to the tour.
In By space, each space is a row. Drag a photo from one row onto another to move it, or drag several at once after clicking Select. Photos in no space sit in the Unassigned row at the bottom; drag them up into their rooms.
Without dragging:
Merge into… on a space's ··· menu moves every photo in the space into the one you pick and removes the space you merged from (only a space you added yourself can be removed this way).
The Tags panel in the Photos toolbar shows every tag in use as a chip. Click a chip to filter the gallery to that tag, use New tag to add one to your listing's vocabulary, or open a chip's menu to rename or delete the tag everywhere it is used. Renaming onto an existing tag merges the two.
Sort into spaces (in the AI tools menu) looks at your photos and videos side by side and works out which existing space each one belongs in: which photos are the same bedroom, which bathroom is which, what is the pool and what is the deck. It also suggests tags from your amenities for photos that have none.
To look again at one space, open that space's ··· menu and choose Re-sort. To sort only what is unassigned, use the AI button on the Unassigned row.
What to expect:
A space becomes a sleeping space when it has beds, and then appears in Where you'll sleep on your site, illustrated by the photos in it. Open the space's ··· menu and choose Beds & sleeping space…. Sleeping spaces show a bed glyph on their chip.
Haven never invents beds from a photo. If rooms sync from a PMS, their beds stay locked until you take them over; if you built the listing in Haven, you pick the room type and enter the beds yourself.
See Sleeping Arrangements for the full walkthrough, including the Sleeping arrangements roll-up near Amenities.
| Feature | Cover Photo | Cover Video |
|---|---|---|
| Display | Static image in hero section | Autoplaying video in hero section |
| Source | First photo in your gallery (sortIndex 0) | Separately uploaded via "Cover video" card |
| Required | Yes (at least one photo required) | No (optional) |
| Priority | Shows when no cover video is set | Replaces cover photo when set |
| Max size | N/A (follow photo requirements) | Up to 5 GB (MP4, WebM, or QuickTime) |
When you upload a cover video, it takes over the hero section. Your first photo still remains in the gallery and is used as a fallback if the video is removed.
If your property is connected to a PMS like Hospitable, photos are synced automatically from your PMS. You will see a count like "56 photos synced from Hospitable" in Photos & Spaces.
New photos from any connected PMS land in that listing's gallery order, not at the end of the Haven gallery. The photo currently in the Cover slot stays put unless you already chose a hero on the Hero tab or you click Use listing order in Photos & Spaces. To make the PMS cover the top of the page, pick it under Home → Hero, or use Use listing order.
To put your Haven gallery back in the order you arranged on Airbnb or in your PMS, open Photos & Spaces, open the AI panel on the photos toolbar, and click Use listing order. You can also ask the assistant: "put my photos in the same order as Airbnb." It shows how many photos will move, and nothing changes until you click Reorder.
Your first listing photo becomes the cover. The next ones fill the story cards and full-width strips, and the rest follow in order. Photos you added in Haven stay after the listing ones. This reorders the photos Haven already has. If some are missing, click Sync now under Settings → Integrations first. It is a one-time match, so if you reorder on Airbnb later, run it again.
The button only appears on a listing connected to a PMS or Airbnb. A listing with nothing connected has no listing order to follow, so drag photos into place or use Sort by AI.
You can still:
See PMS Integrations Overview for more details.
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