Clann features: every control explained

Private family groups

• Invite-only groups - every photo is visible only to the people you explicitly add. There are no public profiles, feeds, or discovery.
• Multiple groups - create separate groups for different sides of the family or different children, each with its own members and settings.
• One-tap multi-group sharing - share a photo to several family groups at once.
• Unique family code - new members join with a short code instead of complicated email invitations.
• Join approval - admins review and approve requests before anyone gets access.
• Not indexed by search engines - your family's photos never appear on the public web.

Admin controls

Every family group has admins with granular control over what members can do:

• Photo downloads - allow approved members to save photos to their devices, or block downloads entirely.
• Screenshot notifications - Clann blocks screenshots and can notify owners and admins when someone attempts one.
• Viewer uploads - decide whether viewers can upload photos and videos, or restrict uploading to admins.
• Comments - turn commenting on or off for the whole group.
• Roles - promote trusted members to admin; keep others as viewers.
• Member management - invite, approve, and remove members at any time.
• Family archive - admins can export the group's entire content in original quality.

Memories, organized

Everything the family adds lands on one shared timeline, in the order the photos were taken rather than the order they were sent. From there:

• Month-by-month timeline - photos are grouped by the month they were taken, with a strip along the top to jump straight to any month. Videos sit alongside the photos.
• Calendar view - switch the timeline to a calendar to see which days have photos, and tap a day to open just that day.
• Filter by child - with more than one child in the group, tap a name to see only the photos they are in.
• Filter by who shared it - show photos from particular family members, and choose whether the timeline runs by the date a photo was taken or the date it was added.
• Ages on every photo - each photo shows how old the children in it were that day, worked out from their birthdays.
• People tagging - every upload is tagged with who is in it, children and adults alike. Tags are added by the family; Clann does not use face recognition.
• Search - find photos by a person's name, an event, a year, a month, or an exact date. Each year opens into its months.
• Events - tag photos as a birthday, holiday, milestone, school, sports, or one of a few other occasions when you add them, then browse every birthday or every holiday together.
• Shared albums - make an album from photos already on the timeline, then add, remove, and reorder them. Albums belong to the family group, so everyone in it sees them.
• Favorites - double-tap any photo to favorite it. Your favorites are your own list, not the whole family's.
• Recently added and shuffle - see the newest photos in one place, or let a slideshow of random photos from the family's history play.
• Dates and captions you can fix - set the date and caption on each photo or on a whole batch when you upload, and change them later. Photos already in the group are recognized rather than added twice.
• Child profiles - add several children to one family group, each with their own birthday. You can add a due date before the baby arrives.

Adding photos from a computer

Phones are where most photos start, but not where the backlog lives. Clann has a desktop uploader at getclann.com/upload for the folder off the camera, the scans, and everything a relative sent you on a laptop:

• Drag and drop in the browser - drop a folder anywhere on the page, click to browse, or paste. Nothing to install and no separate account.
• Authorized by your phone - you scan a code on screen with the Clann app and tick which family groups that computer may add to. Nothing is pre-ticked when you have more than one.
• Still end-to-end encrypted - photos going into an encrypted family group are encrypted in the browser before they upload, using keys the phone seals to that browser rather than anything held on our servers.
• The same details as the app - family group, who is in the photos, a caption, and the date on each photo or on all of them at once, which is what makes scans land in the right year.
• Nothing left behind - the keys live in the tab and are gone when it closes, so a shared computer keeps no access. Duplicates are recognized rather than added twice.
• Photos for now - video uploads from a browser are not supported yet; videos are added from the phone.

Built for grandparents

• Simple view - an optional stripped-back version of the app for relatives who only want to look at photos. Two tabs instead of four, with albums, search, and account settings removed rather than greyed out. Larger buttons and labels throughout, and photos open with just react and comment.
• Web link access - grandparents view photos in any browser through a secure link, with no app install and no account.
• Cross-platform - iOS, Android, and web, so nobody is left out by their choice of phone.
• Customizable notifications - everyone controls how and when they hear about new photos.

Frequently Asked Questions