Why This Is the Whole Point
A photo frame that shows the same 50 photos on repeat gets boring fast. You stop noticing it after a week. But a photo frame that shows yesterday’s photos — the ones your partner took at the park, the ones grandma took at her house, the ones from this morning’s school drop-off — that’s something you actually look at.
Shared albums are what make an iPad photo frame better than a traditional one. Everyone in the family takes photos normally. The frame updates itself. Nobody has to email, AirDrop, or transfer anything.
Option 1: iCloud Shared Albums (Apple Families)
If your household is mostly iPhones and iPads, this is the easiest path.
Setting It Up
On your iPhone:
- Open Photos
- Go to Albums → tap + → New Shared Album
- Name it something like “Family Frame”
- Invite everyone: partner, older kids, grandparents (they need an Apple ID)
- Turn on Subscribers Can Post so everyone can add photos
On the iPad photo frame:
- Open Photos → Albums → you’ll see “Family Frame” under Shared Albums
- Use this album as the source for your slideshow or frame app
How It Works Day-to-Day
Anyone in the shared album can add photos from their phone. They open Photos, select the photos they want to share, tap the share button, and choose “Family Frame” (or whatever you named it). The photos sync to everyone’s devices, including the photo frame iPad.
You can also set up an automation: create a Shortcut on each family member’s phone that automatically copies new photos from specific albums to the shared album. But honestly, just telling people “add the good ones to the frame album” works fine. People naturally curate when they know it’s going on a display.
Limits to Know
- iCloud Shared Albums max out at 5,000 photos and 200 albums per account
- Photos are compressed slightly (not full resolution, but more than good enough for a frame display)
- You can have up to 100 subscribers per shared album
- Shared Albums don’t count against your iCloud storage
That 5,000 photo limit sounds like a lot, but if you’ve been adding photos for a couple years, you’ll want to occasionally remove older ones. A rolling collection of the last few months feels fresher anyway.
Option 2: Google Photos Shared Albums (Mixed Families)
If your family uses a mix of iPhones and Android phones — or if grandma has an Android — Google Photos is the better choice. It works across everything.
Setting It Up
On your phone (any platform):
- Open Google Photos
- Tap Library → New Album
- Name it and add family members as collaborators
- Everyone downloads Google Photos on their phone if they don’t already have it
On the iPad photo frame:
- Install Google Photos from the App Store
- Sign in with the same Google account
- Open the shared album and start a slideshow
The Live Album Trick
Google Photos has a feature called Live Albums that’s perfect for this. Instead of manually adding photos, you tell it to automatically include photos of specific people or pets.
- Create a new album
- Choose “Select people & pets”
- Pick the faces you want (Google Photos identifies them automatically)
- The album auto-populates with every photo containing those people
So if you create a Live Album for your kids, every photo you take of them — from any device, by any family member — appears on the frame automatically. Nobody has to remember to share anything.
Google Photos vs. iCloud Shared Albums
| Feature | iCloud Shared | Google Photos |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-platform | Apple only | Everything |
| Auto-add by face | No | Yes (Live Albums) |
| Storage cost | Free (doesn’t count) | Free (15 GB shared) |
| Photo limit | 5,000 per album | No per-album limit |
| Compression | Moderate | Moderate |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
If everyone in the family has an iPhone, iCloud is slightly simpler. If there’s even one Android user, go Google Photos. The Live Albums feature alone makes it worth using.
The Grandparent Setup
This is one of the best uses for a tablet photo frame. Set up an old iPad at a grandparent’s house, connected to a shared album. Every time you take a photo of the kids, it appears on their display.
How to Set It Up for Them
- Charge the iPad and connect it to their Wi-Fi
- Sign it into their Google account (or set up an Apple ID if they don’t have one)
- Join the shared album — accept the invitation on their device
- Set Auto-Lock to Never — Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never
- Turn off all notifications — they don’t need email alerts on this device
- Open the slideshow — Google Photos or the Photos app, pointed at the shared album
- Put it on a stand — somewhere they’ll see it often. Kitchen counter, living room shelf, hallway table.
- Plug it in — they’ll never need to charge it manually
The Rules for Grandparents
- They don’t have to touch it. Ever. New photos just appear.
- If the screen goes black, they can tap it once. Or just wait — it might be dimming overnight.
- If it “stops working,” unplugging it and plugging it back in fixes almost everything.
Keep it simple. The whole point is that they get to see photos of the grandkids without learning a new app or figuring out a login. You take photos. The photos appear. That’s the entire product.
Privacy Notes
A shared album means everyone with access can see every photo in it. A few things to keep in mind:
- Create a dedicated album for the frame. Don’t point it at your entire camera roll.
- Curate what goes in. Not every photo is frame-worthy. A dedicated album naturally encourages better selection.
- Kids’ photos on display. If the frame is in a visible spot (kitchen, hallway), consider whether visitors can see the display. This probably isn’t a concern in most homes, but it’s worth thinking about once.
- Google Photos face recognition uses data stored in your Google account. If that bothers you, stick to manually-curated albums instead of Live Albums.