Help

Can Kin Album see my photos?

No — it can't. Photos and videos are encrypted on your phone before they upload and Kin Album holds no key. Two things sit outside that encryption: captions and comments, and the small preview image prepared when someone gets photos by email — off by default for a member, on by default for a relative who only has email.

Does anyone in my family pay?

No. One subscription covers everyone you invite.

Is there a free trial?

No. One price from the first day, and relatives never pay.

Does Grandma need an account?

If you invite her as a member, she signs in — the album's key is sealed to her. If you add her as an email recipient, the photos just arrive in her email, no account.

What happens if I stop paying?

Posting stops. Nothing is deleted, everyone can still look and comment, and you can still export everything — so you can take it all with you whenever you like. Posting resumes when the subscription does.

Is it used to train AI?

No. Kin Album can't open your photos, so nothing can run on them.

Does it show ads?

No. Ever. No ad SDKs, no tracking pixels.

Can people find my photos by searching the internet?

No. There is no public link and no explore page — only the people you invite can open the album.

How long can a video be?

Videos up to 400 MB each, about six minutes at the iPhone default.

Can relatives on Android use it?

Yes — as a member in any browser, or as an email recipient.

Does it work on a computer?

Yes, the album opens in any browser.

My invite didn't arrive — what do I do?

Ask the person who runs your album to open People and re-send it — every invite there has a shareable link they can text you directly, which skips email spam filters entirely. Invitations come from hello@mail.kinalbum.com; adding that address to your contacts helps too.

Who can see our photos?

Only the people invited to your album — by name, one at a time. There is no public discovery, no way for strangers to find your album, no suggested followers. Photos are also end-to-end encrypted, so even we can't look at them. Admins can see exactly who has access, and remove anyone, in People.

Do grandparents have to pay?

No. One subscription covers the whole album. Everyone you invite — grandparents, aunts and uncles, the friends who feel like family — views, comments, and hearts for free, in the app or in a web browser, forever.

How do I get my photos out?

Settings → Export, any time, no fee and no waiting period. Your iPhone decrypts your album and builds a zip of the original files right on the device — because of the encryption, an export built anywhere else would be impossible. Your memories are yours; leaving with them is a feature, not a loophole.

Why are there no ads? How is this funded?

The subscription is the entire business. No ads, no data sales, no AI training on your pictures — the price on the label is the whole model. Free photo apps are paid for with your family's attention and data; we chose the boring, honest version instead.

What does “end-to-end encrypted” actually mean here?

Photos and videos are encrypted on your iPhone before upload, with keys that only your family's devices hold. Our servers store scrambled data we cannot read. Captions and comments are stored readably so the album works in email updates and on the web — the full details are on our Security page.

Can I share straight from the Photos app?

Yes — pick photos in Apple Photos, tap Share, choose Kin Album, add a caption and who's in it, and post. It encrypts on the spot and finishes uploading next time the app opens, so it works even from a dead zone. The share sheet is photos-only for now; videos post from inside the app.

What about videos?

Videos post from the app's composer, encrypted like everything else, and relatives play them in the app or browser. Very large videos take longer to upload — the app keeps them safely queued and retries until they land, so a spotty connection delays a video but never loses it.

What if I lose my phone?

Your encryption key is backed up automatically through iCloud Keychain, so signing in on a new iPhone restores your album. For extra safety — or if you don't use iCloud — Settings offers an offline recovery phrase you can write down. Without iCloud or the phrase, encrypted photos genuinely cannot be recovered; that's the honest cost of encryption nobody can bypass, including us.

How do I delete everything?

Settings → Privacy offers both album deletion and full account deletion. Either starts a 30-day countdown — a safety window in case of a mis-tap or a family change of heart — and you can cancel any time within it. After 30 days everything is purged, including the encrypted files.

I found a bug or something looks wrong — who do I tell?

Email support@kinalbum.com — it reaches a human. For security issues, security@kinalbum.com goes to the same people with priority; see the Security page for how we handle reports.

Is FamilyAlbum safe?

It depends which kind of safe you mean. Nobody outside your invited family can see your album, and FamilyAlbum's privacy page says data between your device and their servers is encrypted. What it is not is private from the company: their privacy policy, last updated 18 August 2026, lists among the data they collect “perceptual hashes of photographs and video clips, feature vectors of users' faces, the estimated gender and age of each user's face”, and their developer's engineering page describes facial and person recognition performed with deep learning. That is how the per-child pages, the search and the automatic movies work — it is disclosed, not hidden. If what worries you is strangers, it is safe. If what worries you is any software computing a description of your child's face, read their policy and decide.

The full quotations, with links and dates

Does Tinybeans sell your data?

Their privacy policy, last updated 2 April 2024, says two things that have to be read together. In capitals, it says it will not sell, share or trade the personal information you submit to unrelated third parties or mass marketers for their marketing purposes without your consent. In the California section, it says the company may “sell” and/or “share” personal information with third party partners as part of targeted advertising initiatives — their quotation marks — and lists identifiers, internet activity and commercial information as the categories shared in the previous twelve months. The policy also names an advertising affiliation with Publisher First, dba Freestar. So: not your photos and your submissions, and yes to advertising identifiers, under the broad legal meaning those words carry in California.

Both passages quoted in full, with the source

What is the difference between end-to-end encrypted and encrypted in transit and at rest?

Encrypted in transit and at rest means the file is scrambled on the wire between your phone and the company, and scrambled again on the disk it lands on. It stops someone on the café wi-fi and it stops a stolen drive being readable — but the company holds the keys, so the company can open the photo. End-to-end encrypted means the photo is scrambled on your own device before it uploads, with a key the company never receives, so what they store is something they cannot open. The first is a promise about behaviour; the second is an arrangement that does not depend on behaviour. If a page says “encrypted” without saying which, it is almost always the first — companies that have the second say so.

What each kind of app can actually see

Can I move my photos from another app to Kin Album?

Not automatically — there is no import tool, and the encryption is the reason. Photos are sealed on your iPhone with a key we never receive, so nothing can be brought in on a server; it has to pass through your phone. In practice: export from the old app to your camera roll first and check you got the originals, then post them to Kin Album from the app, up to ten photos or videos at a time. Posting the back catalogue in batches over a few evenings is the realistic version. We would rather tell you that now than after you have paid.

Why is there no free tier?

Because the subscription is the entire business, and we would rather charge you than find another way to be paid. Kin Album is $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year, for everyone you invite, and relatives never pay. There are no storage tiers to be upgraded out of and no plan that runs out — one price, from the first day. It is a real cost of choosing us, and if you want to try a family photo app for nothing first, several good ones are free.

The alternatives, including the free ones

Does Kin Album work if my family is on Android?

For the people you share with, yes. A member on Android signs in and opens the album in any browser — photos, comments and reactions, nothing to install. A relative who only has email can be added as an email recipient instead, and the photos arrive in their inbox with no account at all; they cannot comment, because there is nothing for them to sign in to. What Android cannot do yet is post: albums are created and added to from an iPhone. If the person taking the photos has an Android phone, this is not your app yet, and we would rather say so.