Dear Photos

Dear Photos Support

Help with family sets, familiar voices, sound, the parent check and a safer handoff.

Dear Photos is being made for iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 18 or later, and for Android phones and tablets with Android 10 or later. Where the two differ, this page says so.

Make your first set

  1. Open Dear Photos and tap Choose family photos, then pick a few photos. (Not now skips this.)
  2. Keep or change the name Family, then tap See it come alive.
  3. Touch the photo to feel the response, then choose Keep quiet or Turn on for touch sounds.
  4. Choose Prepare handoff to learn about Guided Access or app pinning, or Back to library.

Later, use New set in the library. You can replay the introduction any time from Settings › Replay introduction; it never changes your sets.

Choosing photos

Choose Choose people & photos to open your device’s photo picker and select up to 120 photos. Dear Photos keeps its own screen-sized copy of each one, so the set stays the same until you edit it. A set called “Grandma” is a saved group of photos; it doesn’t follow that person in your library.

On Android, the picker returns about 100 photos at a time. Use Add photos to add more, up to 120. On some Android 10 and 11 devices the system file picker opens instead; touch and hold a photo to select several.

On iPhone and iPad, you can also choose Keep linked to an album, so new photos you add to that album appear the next time the set plays. This asks for Photos access, and uses the album’s 1,000 newest photos. Linked albums aren’t available on Android.

Dear Photos never edits or deletes anything in your photo library.

Add a familiar voice

Familiar voices work on sets of chosen photos, because those photos stay fixed.

  1. Open the set’s options in the library and choose Edit set.
  2. Choose Add touch areas or Manage touch areas.
  3. Pick a photo and loosely circle a face or detail. Dear Photos turns the circle into a clean outline you can drag or pinch. Whole photo is there too, and Dear Photos may suggest faces it found.
  4. Tap Choose sound, then Record a new voice. Allow the microphone, and record a short phrase of up to five seconds.
  5. Listen, record again if you like, tap Use Recording, then save the touch areas and the set.

A photo can have up to six areas. A recording plays only while touch sounds are on; a tap outside an area plays the usual soft tone. Each set has a Recorded sounds page for naming, reusing and deleting voices.

Trim quiet edges and Enhance voice are on by default. When the microphone you’re using can’t enhance a voice, Dear Photos keeps the original sound and tells you.

Sound, music and touch

Open Settings to change:

On iPhone and iPad, enabled audio plays even when the Ring/Silent switch is on. On Android, it plays at media volume, even when the ringer is silent. Check the volume on the device you’ll hand over.

A safer handoff

Dear Photos can’t lock a device by itself. Your device’s own feature does that, and Dear Photos shows you how before your first handoff.

iPhone and iPad: Guided Access

  1. In the Settings app, go to Accessibility › Guided Access and turn it on, with a passcode.
  2. Start the Dear Photos slideshow you want.
  3. Triple-click the side button (or the Home button), choose Guided Access, and tap Start.

To end it, triple-click again and enter the passcode. If Guided Access says it’s unavailable when you start it again, turn off Face ID in Guided Access › Passcode Settings and use the passcode; that has been more reliable in testing.

Apple notes that Emergency Services and Crash Detection are unavailable during Guided Access. End the session before making an emergency call.

Android: app pinning

  1. In Settings, open Security & privacy › More security & privacy › App pinning (names vary by phone), turn it on, and turn on Ask for PIN before unpinning.
  2. Start a slideshow. Dear Photos asks Android to pin it, and Android asks you to confirm.
  3. While pinned, Home and Recents stay in Dear Photos.

When you leave the slideshow with the parent check, Dear Photos ends its pin, and Android locks the screen if you asked for a PIN. To unpin yourself, swipe up and hold with gesture navigation, or touch and hold Back and Overview with three buttons. You can stop Dear Photos asking with Settings › Ask to pin each slideshow.

Leave a slideshow

  1. Hold two fingers still on the slideshow until Dear Photos responds. (Settings can change this to three or four.)
  2. Lift your fingers.
  3. Confirm with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode on iPhone and iPad, or your fingerprint, face or screen lock on Android.

If the check doesn’t finish, Dear Photos offers Try again, Back to slideshow, and Hold to exit without checking, a deliberate two-second hold that returns to parent mode. That hold doesn’t end Guided Access or Android’s pin; those still need their own passcode or PIN.

Share a set

Open a set’s options and choose Share set…. Choose whether to include Touch areas and Familiar voices; voices start off every time, because anyone with the file can hear them. Dear Photos shows what the copy contains and its size, then opens the share sheet. On Android you can also Save to Files.

A set linked to an album can’t be shared; choose its photos first. To add a set someone sent you, open the .dearphotos file, or use New set › Import a shared set…. Dear Photos checks it and asks before adding it. On Android, if the file opens in another viewer, choose Open with › Dear Photos.

Edit or delete a set

Open a set’s options, or touch and hold its card, and choose Edit set or Delete set. Deleting a set removes its photo copies and recordings from Dear Photos. It never changes your photo library.

There’s no account or sync, so removing the app removes your sets from that device. The privacy policy explains backups.

Troubleshooting

A photo won’t import

If it’s stored in the cloud, open it in your photo app first so it finishes downloading, then try again. If one photo can’t be prepared, Dear Photos leaves your saved set as it was.

There’s no sound

Turn on touch sounds in the library or Settings; ambient music has its own switch. Raise the volume, and check that sound isn’t going to headphones or a speaker you didn’t mean.

A recording won’t start

Allow the microphone for Dear Photos in your device’s settings (Settings › Apps › Dear Photos). If a headset is connected, its microphone may be used instead.

The parent check doesn’t appear

Keep your fingers still until Dear Photos responds, then lift them all. Make sure your device has a passcode or screen lock. You can always use Hold to exit without checking.

Motion or feedback feels too strong

Choose Gentle under Touch response, or turn off haptics, sounds or music. Reduce Motion on iPhone and iPad, and Remove animations on Android, keep feedback clear while limiting moving light and photo depth.

Questions

Ask in public GitHub issues. Posting requires a GitHub account, and everything you post there is public, so please never include photos, voice recordings or your child’s name. It helps to mention your device, its system version, the Dear Photos version, and the steps just before the problem.