Frequently Asked Questions

Last updated: September 6, 2026

Quick answers about building albums with Sidecar Photo, what happens to your photos, and how sharing works.

How does this work?

When you take photos with your phone, the phone saves the location information and date and time inside the photo. We take advantage of this to turn your photos back into a rich album with a map and itinerary, as best as we can from the available GPS information. That way, instead of spending time trying to remember what the name of the museum or pyramid was, we do that for you and you can focus on telling the story of how you forgot your phone at the top of the pyramid.

Can I connect Google Photos or iCloud to build my album?

We'd love to make that click-of-a-button easy too, but neither Apple nor Google currently give outside apps a way to automatically pull your original, full-quality photos, with the date, place, and all the sharp detail intact. iCloud only lets you download photos one at a time through their website, and Google tends to hand over a compressed, resized version instead of the real thing, which means softer, blurrier images and missing details like exactly where a photo was taken. So for now, adding your photos directly through the app is how we make sure what ends up in your album is the real, crisp, full-resolution shot, not a smaller, lower-quality stand-in. It's a bit more hands-on today, but it's what keeps your album looking as good as the moment you captured.

Can I upload videos?

Not yet. Right now the app is built around photos, but video is something we'd love to support down the road.

Can I update the captions with my own stories?

Yes! The map and dates get you started, but the story is always yours to tell.

What information does the app pull from my photos, and do you sell it for marketing purposes?

When you're picking which photos to keep in the curation step, the app takes a quick look at each one as it flies by: the date and place it was taken (if your phone saved that), its size, and a little visual fingerprint of what's in it. That's how it spots near-duplicate shots, so you're not stuck comparing a dozen almost-identical photos of the same view, and groups photos into bursts and moments.

It also does a quick face check, just enough to tell if there's a face in frame, whether the eyes are open, and whether someone's smiling, so it can help surface the shot where nobody's blinking. It's not trying to figure out who anyone is, just whether the shot is a good one.

For any photo you actually add to your album, we keep the whole photo. For the ones you pass on, we just keep those small descriptive details, not the photo itself, so the app gets better at guessing what you'll want to keep next time.

We don't sell your photos or your trip details to anyone, for marketing or otherwise. It's used for one thing: building the album you asked for.

Is my album private by default, or can strangers find it?

Private by default, it's not listed anywhere or searchable. Once you're ready to show it off, you create a share link, and anyone you send that link to can view the album, no account needed on their end.

Do you sell my photos or location data to advertisers?

No. We use a few third-party providers behind the scenes, for things like hosting and storage, but they're only there to help us run the service, not to advertise to you or use your trip data for anything of their own.

Why should I provide full access to my photos on iOS?

Full access lets us do the fun part for you: scanning your whole camera roll to find your best travel shots, cut duplicates, and skip the blurry ones, instead of you scrolling through hundreds of photos picking them out one by one. Only the photos you actually choose to include end up in your album; everything else stays right where it is on your phone.

Can I share a page with all my albums on it?

Right now, no. Since SidecarPhoto is privacy first, we keep it so you share specific albums, not one big page with everything you've ever uploaded. But it's a feature we'd love to build, imagine a world map with a pin for everywhere you've been! If that sounds like something you'd want, let us know at [email protected].