Your photos stay yours. That’s the whole point.
Small Years exists to make sharing your child’s photos effortless — without handing them to anyone you didn’t choose. Privacy isn’t a setting here; it’s how the app is built. In plain language:
- on the phone
Scanning happens on your device.
Face detection, quality scoring, and duplicate filtering all run locally on your iPhone using Apple’s own on-device models. Your photo library is never uploaded so we can scan it — the scanning comes to the photos, not the other way around.
- one tap
Only photos you approve ever leave.
Our agent proposes a small batch of candidates. Nothing is shared until you tap approve. Photos you skip stay on your phone and are never sent to our servers, captioned, or shown to anyone.
- who can see
Family sees a timeline by invite only.
Grandparents and family open a private invite link — no account, no app install, no profile. The link only ever shows the timeline you shared it for, and you can revoke it at any time, which closes access immediately.
- no selling
We never sell or train on your photos.
Your children’s photos are not advertising inventory and not training data. Captions are generated for your timeline and your family — nothing more. We hold the minimum we need to show the timeline you built.
- you own it
You can export or delete everything.
It’s your archive. You can export your timeline or delete your account and its photos at any time. When you delete, the photos are removed from our storage — not hidden, not archived.
Questions about your data? Reach us any time — a real person, not a form.