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The Guest Portal ​

When you invite a guest, they get a private portal for their episode. This page walks through the portal from your guest's seat so you know exactly what they see, what they can do, and what stays between the two of you.

Want a version written directly to your guests? Point them at For Guests.

How Guests Get In ​

Guests verify their email instead of creating an account:

  1. Your guest opens the invitation email and clicks Confirm Email & View Invite
  2. The verification page greets them by name and asks for their Email Address (with a partially hidden hint of the invited address)
  3. They click Send Verification Link and see a Check Your Email confirmation
  4. In the second email, they click Verify & Access Portal and land in the portal

Verification links expire in 24 hours and are one-time use. If a guest waits too long, they can request a fresh link from the same page (Send Another Link, after a 30 second wait). If their invitation itself is invalid, they see Invalid Link with a note to contact you, the host, for a new one.

Once verified, guests stay signed in on that device for 7 days. After that, they reopen their original invitation link and enter their email to request a fresh verification email. The one-time link in an earlier verification email cannot be reused.

Guests who already have a show.fm account skip all of this. Their invitation arrives as a notification that opens the portal directly, and they're never asked to verify an email address their account already owns. If a guest's link has expired, signing in to show.fm takes them straight back to the episode. A guest who opens a verification link while already in the portal on that device, or while signed in to the account the invitation was for, goes straight in too.

What Guests See ​

A slim top bar shows your podcast cover and name, labelled Guest portal, so guests always know whose show they're prepping for. Under it sits the episode header:

  • The episode title with its status (such as Scheduled or Published)
  • Recording date and time, shown in the guest's own time zone (the header says "Shown in your time zone") with a countdown like "in 3 days"
  • Join: if the session has a link, the header's main button is labelled for the recording platform (such as Join Zoom Meeting) and opens it in a new tab. A copy button next to it copies the link. In-person sessions show "Recorded in person" instead, and a scheduled session whose link hasn't been set yet tells the guest it's coming
  • Episode description, if you've written one. Long descriptions fold to two lines behind More

At the bottom of the portal, a short line says it's powered by show.fm. If your account is on the Founders plan, a show.fm | Founder badge sits above that line. You can turn the badge off in Account settings.

Show Notes: Shared vs Private ​

Guests type in the same notes sheet you use on the episode's Show notes tab. It has two tabs, Shared first and then My notes, and a line at the top of each says who can read it, with their faces:

  • Shared: "Everyone on this episode can read this, and it may be published"
  • My notes: "Only you and the host can read this" ("the hosts" when your team has more than one person)

A few things to keep in mind as the host:

  • Shared notes are visible to every participant on the episode, including other guests, and you may publish them. Don't paste anything there you wouldn't want public.
  • My notes are private between the guest and your team. Other guests can't see them, but you can. The portal tells guests this explicitly, so treat those notes with care.
  • Edits sync in real time. Guests see small avatars when someone else is editing a section, and their changes save automatically.
  • If you haven't created show notes for the episode yet, guests see No show notes yet: "Your host hasn't created show notes for this episode yet. You can still chat with them while you wait." Create them from the episode's Show notes tab so guests have somewhere to contribute.

On a phone, a switcher at the top shows one thing at a time: Shared, My notes, or Chat. The chat option carries a count of unread messages.

Chat ​

The portal includes the same Episode Chat you use on the Show Notes page, docked against the right edge of the screen: real-time messages, mentions, reactions, and a People tab showing who's online. Guests can fold it to a slim rail (which still shows unread messages and who's online) and click anywhere on the rail to open it again. Anything anyone posts in chat is visible to all participants on the episode.

What Guests Can and Can't Do ​

Guests can:

  • View the episode's recording details and join the meeting
  • Read and edit Shared notes, and write in their own My notes
  • Send chat messages, react, and mention participants
  • Switch the portal between light and dark themes

Guests can't:

  • Edit episode details, upload files, or change anything about your podcast
  • See other guests' private notes
  • Update their own profile details from inside the episode portal

Chat Notifications for Guests ​

When someone posts in the episode chat, or mentions a guest, the guest is notified so they can reply. A guest without a show.fm account gets an email. A guest with an account also gets it in their notification bell, using the notification settings on their account.

Either way, the link opens the guest portal for that episode. A guest with an account goes straight in, just like their invitation link. A guest without one confirms their email first if they haven't used the portal on that device recently. It never sends a guest to your team workspace, even if they have a show.fm account. If a guest is also on your team with access to the episode, they get one notification that opens the episode in the workspace.

Guests aren't notified about their own messages. While someone has the chat open, new messages don't send them an email or a push notification, and only a mention adds to their notification bell.

The Account Upgrade Path ​

The portal quietly offers guests an optional free account. The top bar shows Sign in and, for a guest without an account, Create account, and the account page pitches: "Unlock the full guest experience with a free show.fm account."

If a guest signs up, all episodes tied to their email link to their new account, and they get a My Episodes dashboard listing every show they've appeared on. This costs them (and you) nothing, and it's how guests join the Guest Network where other hosts can discover them. The full flow is documented for guests at Create a Free Account.

What's Next? ​

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