Scan the shoebox with your phone, one evening at a time

What you get

• Your shoebox of prints becomes a searchable family archive, one evening at a time - no flatbed scanner needed.

• Glow finds the edges automatically and flattens the photo, so you hold the phone and the cropping handles itself.

• Scan a single print, a full album page, or several loose photos at once - Glow splits them into individual files without extra steps.

• Relatives you invite can scan from their own phones, so the whole family's pieces come together without everything routing through you.

• You can try it before you commit: scans stay on the phone until you sign in, so you can try your first scans before signing up.

• Documents scan the same way prints do, so the letters, the baptismal record, the folded telegram at the back of the drawer all live in the same place.

How it works

1. Gather

Pull out one shoebox - or one album, or the envelope from a drawer. You do not need to sort first. The only thing that matters at this stage is having the prints in front of you.

2. Scan

Open Glow on your phone and point it at the print. Glow detects the edges, flattens the image, and splits multiple prints if you've laid out more than one. You stay in the chair; the app does the geometry.

3. Organise

Once the scans are in your family archive, you can add a caption, a date, a name - or leave that for later. Invite your mother to add her own note to a photo while she still remembers the story behind it. Invite your sister to label the relatives she recognises that you do not.

4. Share

Family members you invite can view, add to, and scan into the same archive from their own phones. A relative without an account can add a story to a specific photo through a guest link - no setup required on their end.

The parts that matter

Scan quality

Glow finds the edges and flattens each print, so every scan is a straight, cropped digital copy of the photo as it exists today - a stable copy you can work from.

Organisation that more than one person can use

A Google Drive folder works for one organised person. Glow's family archive is built for the whole family - your aunt can find the 1962 wedding photos without asking you to send them again, because they are already in the shared space she has access to.

Low barrier for the relatives you most need

The cousin who has the 1970s prints can be invited by email and scan from their own phone. A guest link lets someone add a story to one photo without signing up at all.

Private to your family

Scans remain on your phone until you choose to sign in and save them to your archive. Once saved, the archive is private to your family - only the people you invite can see it. Nothing is public.

Start building your family archive

The window does not close all at once. It narrows gradually - a story misremembered here, an album moved to a garage there. If you want a method for working through a full collection efficiently, our guide to scanning a shoebox of old family photos without losing a weekend walks you through the process step by step. Starting with one shoebox this week is enough to change what your family has ten years from now.

The archive matters most when time runs short - whether that means an aging relative whose memories are fading, or the practical scramble that follows a loss. Knowing how to save a loved one's photos, messages, and voicemails before that moment arrives makes everything easier when it does. In the meantime, it is worth asking the questions your parents can still answer while the stories behind the photos are there to be told.

Join the founding families and scan your first print today.