Invite Guests

Guests collaborate on their episode through a private guest portal. There they can see the recording details, contribute to show notes, and message you. Guests never need to create a show.fm account; access works through a secure email verification link.

Ways a Guest Gets Added

There are three ways a guest ends up on an episode:

• They book a session: guests who book through your booking link are added to the episode created for that booking
• You invite them from an episode: open the episode, go to the Guests tab, and click Invite guest
• You invite them from the Guests page: open Guests in your podcast navigation to manage every guest relationship in one place

Invite a Guest

1. Open Guests in your podcast navigation and click Invite Guest. A panel opens beside the page, in two steps.
2. Step 1 is the people: select one or more guests you have had on before, or add someone new by entering their Name and Email. Click Next: choose the episode.
3. Step 2 is the episode: pick the one they're joining. One episode per invite, and only episodes still in production are offered. Published and archived episodes are not, because there is nothing left for a guest to collaborate on.
4. Leave Send invites now on to send each guest their invitation right away
5. Click Add to this episode

If you turn Send invites now off, the guests are added silently and show Not invited yet. They cannot open the episode portal or see it in My Episodes. Calendar invitations, meeting-change emails, automation emails and chat notifications leave them out. Use Send invite from their guest profile or episode row when you are ready.

The same panel opens from a guest's profile page with Invite to episode. The guest is already decided there, so it only asks which episode, and episodes they are already on are marked Already invited.

An episode's Guests tab has the matching panel: the episode is already decided, so you only pick the people. See People and Credits for that flow.

What Your Guest Receives

What arrives depends on whether the person already has a show.fm account. You do not choose between these, and you do not need to know which applies: show.fm picks the right one from the email address you invited.

Guests without an account

They get an invitation email headed You're Invited!, naming you, the podcast, the episode, and the recording date if one is set.

1. The guest clicks Accept Invitation in that email
2. On the verification page, they enter their email address and click Send Verification Link
3. They receive a second email and click Verify & Access Portal, which opens their episode portal

Guests who already have an account

They are notified in the app, by email, and by push if they have it switched on. Their notification links straight into the episode portal, so there is no verification step and nothing to confirm. They already own the email address, so asking them to prove it again would be busywork.

Either way the guest never needs a password for the portal, and an account holder is never asked to create a second one.

Links expire

The emailed verification link expires in 24 hours and can only be used once. If a guest's link has expired, they can request a fresh one from the verification page, or you can send a new email with Resend invite.

Why verification matters

The portal can contain private prep material and conversation. Verification proves the person opening the link controls the invited email address, without forcing them through account signup. The verification page link itself is safe to share; only someone who can receive email at the invited address gets in.

Know When a Guest Accepts

The first time a guest opens their portal, whoever invited them is notified: in the app, by email, and by push. The notification names the guest and links to that episode's Guests tab.

You are notified once per guest, not every time they visit. If you switched their status to Active yourself, that is your own edit and nothing is sent.

To turn this off, go to Settings → Notifications and clear the email or push toggle on Guest accepted an invitation.

Manage a Guest's Access

Open Guests in your podcast navigation and click a guest to see their profile and episode history. From the actions menu on each episode row you can:

• Copy link: share access yourself, with the confirmation described below
• Send invite or Resend invite: send the account notification or invitation email appropriate for that guest
• Regenerate Token: invalidate the guest's existing access and issue a new token
• Remove from Episode: revoke their portal access for that episode

Share a link yourself

1. Click Copy link on the guest's row.
2. For a guest marked Not invited yet, read Share the link yourself?. Cancel leaves their access unchanged and copies nothing.
3. Click Copy link in the dialog to let them in and copy the link. Send the link to them yourself. show.fm does not email or notify them, but if the recording already has a calendar event, Google adds them to it and sends its invitation.
4. Optionally tick Don't ask me again on this device before confirming. This applies only to this browser. If your browser refuses storage, the dialog will appear again.

Their row now says Link shared with the date, and still offers Send invite. Once they open the portal it says Active, the same as any guest who has got in. Sending an invite before then replaces Link shared with Invited and the actual send date. Copying again after a share or send does not ask for confirmation or change that date.

Account holders get a portal link. If they open it signed out, they're asked to sign in and then taken straight to the episode. Guests without an account get a verification link and must prove they control the invited email address. Booking guests already count as invited through the booking flow.

Guest Statuses

Status	Meaning
Not invited yet	Added to the episode, with no guest access or communications
Link shared	Access enabled by a manual link share; no invitation sent by show.fm, and the guest hasn't opened the portal yet
Invited	Guest has been invited but has not yet accessed the portal
Active	Guest has verified their email and can access the portal
Completed	Guest collaboration is complete
Expired	Guest access has expired

You can change a guest's status from the same actions menu, for example marking a collaboration Completed after the episode ships.

Keep Guests in the Loop Automatically

Pair guest invitations with starter automations to send booking confirmations, recording reminders, and a "your episode is live" email without lifting a finger.

What's Next?

• The Guest Portal: a tour of what your guests see
• Messaging: episode conversation with your guest
• For Guests: guides written directly to your guests. Send them here!