Device keys, not passwords
Each phone and computer makes its own secret key when it is set up. Your family is the set of those devices. There is no password to steal or guess.
Privacy and security
Your photos are none of our business.
PhotoAlbumsMesh is built so that your family's photos go from your phones to your computer, and to nobody else. This page says exactly what our service can see, in plain words.
No account
Nothing to sign up for.
Straight to your computer
At home, photos never touch the internet.
Sealed when away
Our relay cannot open your photos.
No tracking
No analytics in the apps or on this site.
Who can see what
Everyone who could see something, and what they see
| Who | What they can see | What they keep |
|---|---|---|
| Your family's phones and computers | Your photos, albums and places. | The photos, in plain folders on your computer. |
| PhotoAlbumsMesh, free version | At home, nothing. Away from home, when a phone needs to be introduced to your computer: the two devices' public keys and internet addresses, for a moment. Never photos. | Nothing. |
| Our relay (Sync Anywhere) | Which of your family's devices connect, their internet addresses, and how much data passes and when. The photos pass through sealed. | Nothing on disk. No traffic logs. |
| Our subscription service (Sync Anywhere) | A random family number, the list of your devices' public keys, and whether the family has paid. | That list, the paid-until date and the store receipt number, for refunds. No names, no emails. |
| Apple, Google or our payment partner | The purchase, and the buyer's store account. Our web payment partner also has the buyer's email and address. | Their own purchase records. Never photos. |
| Anyone on the same Wi-Fi | That a computer running the app is there, and its network address. | Nothing. |
Nobody on this list ever sees your photos' content, file names, albums or places, except your own family's devices.
How it is protected
Security, built in from the first line
Joining takes the family computer
A phone joins by scanning a code that works for 10 minutes, and both screens show the same 4 numbers. Only a Photo home can add or remove a device, or the recovery key when no Photo home is left.
Encrypted connections, always
Even at home, the connection between a phone and a computer is encrypted. Away from home, photos are sealed on the phone and opened only on your computer.
No tracking in the apps
No usage statistics, no analytics, no crash reports, and no third-party code that reports on you. If something breaks, the app shows the details and you decide whether to email them to us.
Your part
Photos on your computer are ordinary files
That is what keeps them yours: you can open, copy and move them without us. It also means anyone who can use your computer can open them. Two simple steps help a lot:
- Turn on disk encryption: BitLocker or Device Encryption on Windows, FileVault on Mac, or full-disk encryption on Linux.
- Keep the recovery key PhotoAlbumsMesh gives you at set-up somewhere safe, away from the computer.
Later
When the Cloud tier arrives
The cloud copy will be encrypted end to end: only your family's devices will be able to open it. Cloud will add sign-in with Google, Apple or email, because opening photos on the web needs a way in.
A shared album is different: to show it in a web browser, our service must be able to read that one album while it is shared. The app will say so clearly before the first share. Everything you do not share stays encrypted end to end.
This website
No cookies, no trackers
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other companies: even the fonts come from our own server. Our web host may keep standard server logs, such as internet addresses, for security.
If you join early access, we keep your email address to tell you when PhotoAlbumsMesh is ready. See the privacy policy.
Designed by Volodymyr Usov, cloud and security architect. Questions about security are welcome.