Breadcrumbs give visitors a clickable trail back to the Album a Gallery belongs to, so they can step back one level without using the browser button. The Back Button does the same job as a single prominent control. Both are configured per Album and appear on the Gallery side, above any filters or item grid.
Location Album Settings → Navigation
When the chrome appears #
Breadcrumbs and the Back Button live on the Gallery, but they are configured on the parent Album. They render when:
- A visitor opens a Gallery from this Album — either by clicking through a normal page load or via the smooth AJAX transition.
- A visitor lands on the Gallery directly (its own permalink) AND that Gallery belongs to this Album only. This is the single-parent rule. The display can be toggled off for this case with Show Breadcrumbs on Direct Visits.
If a Gallery belongs to two or more Albums, there is no single parent to point back to, so neither the breadcrumb trail nor the Back Button renders on direct visits regardless of any setting.
Albums themselves never carry breadcrumb chrome — these controls are only about navigating into a Gallery.
Breadcrumb settings live on the Album, not on each individual Gallery. Change them once on the Album and every Gallery reached through that Album updates.
Breadcrumbs #
The trail renders as a chevron-separated list — for example Album → Gallery — with the Album name as a link and the current Gallery name as plain text. The separator is an SVG using currentColor so it inherits your theme’s text colour.
Show Breadcrumbs
Master toggle for the breadcrumb trail.
| Setting | Show Breadcrumbs |
| Options | on off |
| Default | on |
Show Breadcrumbs On
Selects the contexts where the trail is allowed to appear. When set to a single value, breadcrumbs only render in that context.
| Setting | Show Breadcrumbs On |
| Options (multi-select) | View Pages Embedded Galleries |
| Default | View Pages, Embedded Galleries |
| Visible when | Show Breadcrumbs is on |
The Embedded Galleries option only takes effect when Smooth Album to Gallery Transitions is enabled — that is the setting that causes a Gallery to swap into an Album page in the first place. Without smooth transitions, an embedded Gallery does not arrive from an Album, so there is nothing to breadcrumb back to.
Show Breadcrumbs on Direct Visits
Controls whether breadcrumbs appear when a visitor lands on the Gallery directly, without coming from the Album. Useful for SEO and shareable links. Off by default because some sites prefer breadcrumbs to appear only when there is a real visit context.
| Setting | Show Breadcrumbs on Direct Visits |
| Options | on off |
| Default | off |
| Visible when | Show Breadcrumbs is on |
The single-parent rule still applies — direct-visit breadcrumbs only render if the Gallery belongs to this Album only.
Emit BreadcrumbList Schema (SEO)
Adds an invisible schema.org/BreadcrumbList JSON-LD block to the page so search engines can show the breadcrumb trail directly in results. The schema mirrors the visible trail — parent Album, then current Gallery.
| Setting | Emit BreadcrumbList Schema (SEO) |
| Options | on off |
| Default | on |
| Visible when | Show Breadcrumbs is on |
If an SEO plugin (Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress) already emits a BreadcrumbList for these pages, turn this off to avoid duplicate schema.
The schema is never emitted during a smooth Album-to-Gallery transition — the page URL has not changed, so emitting schema for the swapped-in Gallery would describe content that does not match the canonical URL.
Breadcrumb Source
Chooses whether FotoGrids renders the breadcrumb trail itself or hands rendering off to an SEO plugin.
| Setting | Breadcrumb Source |
| Options | FotoGrids Auto-detect SEO plugin Yoast SEO Rank Math |
| Default | FotoGrids |
| Visible when | Show Breadcrumbs is on |
The options behave as follows:
- FotoGrids — Renders the chevron-separated trail described above. Available on every tier.
- Auto-detect SEO plugin — Picks the active SEO plugin (Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress) when one is present and falls back to FotoGrids otherwise. Pro Starter and above.
- Yoast SEO — Hands rendering off to Yoast SEO. Pro Starter and above.
- Rank Math — Hands rendering off to Rank Math. Pro Starter and above.
Back Button #
The Back Button is a single prominent link that returns the visitor to the parent Album in one click. It carries a back-arrow icon and a text label, and uses the Album permalink as its target. When the visitor reached the Gallery via a smooth transition, clicking Back restores the Album view in place instead of triggering a page navigation.
Show “Back to Album” Button
Master toggle for the Back Button.
| Setting | Show “Back to Album” Button |
| Options | on off |
| Default | off |
Show Album Name on Button
Controls the button label. With this on, the button reads Back to {Album Name}. With it off, it reads just Back — useful when the Album name is long or the layout is tight.
| Setting | Show Album Name on Button |
| Options | on off |
| Default | on |
| Visible when | Show “Back to Album” Button is on |
Styling and accessibility #
The breadcrumb trail is wrapped in a <nav aria-label="Breadcrumb"> element with an ordered list. The current Gallery item carries aria-current="page" so screen readers announce it as the current location. The chevron separator carries aria-hidden="true" so the trail is announced as Album, Gallery rather than Album, chevron, Gallery.
Both the breadcrumb separator and the Back Button icon use currentColor and inherit from the surrounding text colour, so they pick up your theme styles without further configuration.
