Sharing private photos with people who will never install your app

Our Family Album is a private photo album for families. Parents post a moment once, and the people they invited see it right away. It launched in July 2026. And the main engineering problem turned out to be one sentence I kept hearing from users: "My parents won't install another app." 😅

Sharing without an app

Version 1.5 added Share without an app. From the invitation screen or an album's menu you can do two things:

• Create a browser link for one person. It opens the album read-only on any device, with no account. Each link is made for a single person, can expire after 30 days, and can be revoked at any time.
• Invite someone by email. Each photo email includes a link to the full album, so relatives can catch up from their inbox.

Browser access is read-only on purpose. Uploading, commenting and reacting stay inside the app, where people have accounts.

Permissions belong on the server

The first versions stored some album settings in UserDefaults on the device. That breaks as soon as two family members change settings on two different phones. So now:

• Album permissions come from the server, not from local storage.
• A save waits for the server to confirm it. If it fails, the app restores the previous state and shows the error.
• Uploads, comments, reactions, sharing and exports all check the server's flags.
• Notification settings live on the account, and the server filters what gets delivered. Email is opt-in.

Screenshot protection

An album can block screenshots. When it does, its photos and videos show up black in screenshots and screen recordings, everywhere they appear: the photo viewer, the family feed and the album grid.

Privacy in analytics

My product analytics follow one rule across my apps: send ids, counts, settings and fixed codes. Never names, emails, typed text or photos. For a family photo app, that rule isn't optional.

Lessons

• Design sharing for the least technical person in the family.
• Every shareable link should be personal, expirable and revocable.
• If several devices can change a setting, the server owns it.

Get Our Family Album on the App Store →

Website: ourfamilyalbum.com

Thanks for reading! How do you handle sharing with non-technical users in your apps? I'd love to know 🙂

Why I built a private family album, as a dad of three, is a story on my newsletter: manuelescrig.substack.com.

Manuel