Is Famileze a social network?

No. It's a private family archive. There's no feed, no profiles and no strangers; only your family's own devices can read what's in it.

Who can see our photos?

You, and a co-parent you invite, for the folders you choose to share. Your photos are encrypted on your phone before they leave, and we hold no key, so we can't see them.

Can I add videos that are already on my phone?

Yes. On the capture screen, tap 🎞 Choose a video and pick one from your camera roll.

Do the grandparents need the app?

No. Share a single photo from the photo itself, or send them the family newsletter, which arrives as ordinary email. Because it's ordinary email, a newsletter isn't end-to-end encrypted the way your archive is.

What happens to our photos if I lose my phone?

Every capture is encrypted and backed up to your family's private cloud as you make it. Sign in on a new phone and your archive comes back.

Famileze › Guides

A private family photo app that isn't social media

Updated 15 October 2026

In short

Famileze is a private family archive on iPhone. Take a photo, record a video or speak a caption, and it lands on your family timeline and in the folders you choose. Your photos and videos are encrypted on your phone before they leave, so what's stored is unreadable to us. There is no feed, no likes and no audience.

What makes it different

A social app is built around an audience. Famileze has none. Nothing you add is ranked, liked, commented on by strangers or shown to anyone outside your family. Your timeline runs newest first, in the order you added things, and the only people who see it are you and, for the folders you choose to share, a co-parent you invite.

When you save a moment, the screen says so plainly: encrypted on this phone, then backed up to your private cloud, and we can't read it. There is a cloud, and it is what keeps both parents in step and means a lost phone doesn't mean lost photos. It just can't be read by anyone but your family.

Capture the moment

On Home, tap Capture the moment. (Or tap the gold ＋ button and choose Capture the moment.)
Choose how: Take a photo, Choose from library (pick several at once), 🤳 Selfie, 🎬 Record a video or 🎞 Choose a video from your camera roll.
Under Who's this about?, tap 👪 Family, your own name, or a child's name.
Under What kind of moment?, pick Moment, Milestone, A first, Quote, Drawing or School.
Under Where should this go?, leave Timeline selected or tap a folder. ＋ New folder makes one without leaving the screen.
Under Add caption or context, type a line, or tap 🎙 Tap to record and simply say what's happening.
Tap Save.

No time for a caption? Save it now and add one later: open the photo and tap ✏️ Edit caption. It's worth doing, because captioned photos are what your family newsletter is built from, and a caption is what makes a photo easy to find in five years.

A note on the microphone: on iPhone, 🎙 uses Apple's speech recognition, and Apple may send that audio to its servers to turn it into text. That's Apple's service; we never receive the audio. Type instead if you'd rather nothing left the phone.

The family timeline

The 👪 Family timeline sits at the bottom of Home. Tap ▤ to switch between large cards, 3 across and 6 across, or pinch to do the same.

Tap any photo to open it. From there you can 📤 Share it, ✏️ Edit caption, move it with 📁 Save to…, add it to the newsletter, or delete it.

Folders, and big folders by year and month

Tap ☰ and choose Folders.
Tap ＋ New folder and give it a name: Holidays, School, Artwork, anything.
If you've invited a co-parent, choose who can see it: 👪 Both parents or 🔒 Admin only (just me). New folders start as admin only, and you can change it later in Settings → Folder sharing.

Two things are worth knowing. A photo you file into a folder while capturing also stays on the timeline. A photo you add from inside a folder, using ＋ Add to this folder, stays in that folder only and is left out of newsletters, which suits a big batch of old photos.

Once a folder holds 150 or more items across more than one month, it opens on tiles by year, then by month, worked out from the date each photo was taken. Photos with no usable date get their own Undated tile. Smaller folders simply list everything.

Search

Tap ＋ and choose Search, or choose Search from the ☰ menu, then type into Search everything…. Moments are found by their caption, by who they're about and by the kind of moment, so "Milestone" or a child's name brings their moments up. Results are grouped by type, with the same search also covering your calendar and the rest of the archive.

Open the photo and tap 📤 Share. (Or press and hold it on the timeline.)
Your iPhone's own share sheet opens with the photo as a file. Choose who to send it to.

The photo leaves clean, with nothing drawn on it, so whoever saves it keeps your picture exactly as it was. Beside it, Famileze adds one line of text: Shared from our family's Famileze — https://famileze.app. Videos share the same way, as the file alone.

Be clear about what sharing means. The file goes wherever you send it, through your phone's share sheet, not through Famileze, and we don't keep a copy. Once it arrives, it is the recipient's copy, outside your encrypted archive.

It works offline

Your phone keeps its own copy, so you can browse photos already on it with no signal. New captures wait on the phone, the timeline shows how many are waiting, and they back up as soon as you're online again.

What it doesn't do

There's no public feed, no followers and no likes. Nothing is posted anywhere unless you tap 📤 Share or send a newsletter.
Search reads your words, not the pictures. It doesn't recognise faces or objects, so a caption is what makes a photo findable.
A photo you share is out of Famileze's hands once it's sent.
Year and month tiles appear only in big folders, not on the timeline.

Questions parents ask

Is Famileze a social network?: No. It's a private family archive. There's no feed, no profiles and no strangers; only your family's own devices can read what's in it.
Who can see our photos?: You, and a co-parent you invite, for the folders you choose to share. Your photos are encrypted on your phone before they leave, and we hold no key, so we can't see them.
Can I add videos that are already on my phone?: Yes. On the capture screen, tap 🎞 Choose a video and pick one from your camera roll.
Do the grandparents need the app?: No. Share a single photo from the photo itself, or send them the family newsletter, which arrives as ordinary email. Because it's ordinary email, a newsletter isn't end-to-end encrypted the way your archive is.
What happens to our photos if I lose my phone?: Every capture is encrypted and backed up to your family's private cloud as you make it. Sign in on a new phone and your archive comes back.

Famileze is coming to iPhone. Join the waitlist.