PhotoCircle Reviews

by Worldtraveler8186

I’ve uses PhotoCircle for years with my family and it had been really good to keep in touch. With the recent software changes though, it’s become terrible. It takes 7-10 seconds (at minimum) to to load each picture, with ads every few pictures. It takes forever to look at anything and when I leave a comment, it posts on the wrong picture. I looked at other reviews and saw the developers response that they are trying to change some of the glitches, which I can understand and be patient for, but what I find most frustrating is that the majority of the ads are promoting pornography and are NOT family friendly. The majority of the ads I have to swipe through post lewd pictures of women asking which I want to chat with live. If you’re looking for a family friendly app, this one is no longer it. Protect your family and look elsewhere for an app where you can share pictures and videos.

by MrsMM2

I’m so annoyed by the newest update. Not only do I have half a dozen ads when trying to view photos, but some ads aren’t even able to be clicked out of once the ad is completed, I have to close out PhotoCircle and start over. It’s not nearly as user friendly as it used to be and quite frankly as a user I get nothing in return for the now excessive amount of ads. No longer video uploads, no better notification management. Nothing. Just so many ads it feels like a virus. I have used PhotoCircle and so have my family and friends for 4 years and while I’m not opposed to paying to remove ads, a yearly subscription to do so is obscene for the limited perks that PhotoCircle provides. Actively looking for an alternative.

by Sasha2699

I love PhotoCircle and the concept. My fam and I use this all the time for every family event going on about 5 years now but the last couple years I don’t want to use it anymore because of the bugs and glitching. If I can’t view the photos and comments properly then what’s the point. Sometimes I upload one photo and t shows that it uploaded twice, sometimes I click a picture and what pops up is not even the picture that I clicked so clearly the photos must be out of order or I’m not seeing things the way they should be presented. And forget about reading the comments I usually have to scroll through each picture to see which pictures really do have comments. It’s an amazing concept but PhotoCircle has some serious bugs and this is after the update 2 months ago.

by KML67

Please please please fix the upload order so they upload in chronological order, make the photos sortable by the creator of an album, or enable sorting in different ways (e.g. sort by time, day, upload order, etc.)!!! Whenever I upload photos, sometimes groups of photos get split up from the same portion of a trip or event, and then I have to re-explain what it’s from/say sorry that it uploaded out of order!

I would also appreciate more space for comments, but not as much as the picture uploading in the right order :)

But other than that, it’s great, I’ve been using it to share photos from a trip with family and friends!! That way I don’t have to post everything on social media, but I can still share details with people!

by Steph H - Mom Of 3

My family and I have been using PhotoCircle for years to share family photos. The addition of the constant intrusive ads is making it a very unpleasant experience and we are starting to look for other apps that will be less intrusive. Extremely disappointing. At least add an option for a reasonable paid version - its really ridiculous that you are asking $8-$12 per year - and not a one time purchase. You can’t add videos longer than a few seconds and there is no organization you offer - so why should I do this vs any of the other apps that are our there? Answer: I don’t have one.

by JK (no, Really)

This is a nice app for groups to share photos of a common experience. I used it on a school trip with about twelve people as well as a personal journey with a friend, and it’s cool to get everyone’s perspectives on what they found to be photo-worthy. Also, it saves space on your personal device because after you upload your photos, you can delete them from your phone.

Something lacking is the ability to sort photos. It would be nice to click on one person’s avatar and see just the photos they uploaded, and (what I really want) the ability to sort photos by date taken. That would be immensely helpful for locating specific photos and showing other people the details of the trip chronologically.

Overall, a nice app that could use an improvement or two.

by Ttulipss

My family downloaded PhotoCircle for our family vacation in Italy to share our pictures. Collectively, we literally downloaded 500+ pictures, when we could, into the daily albums we created on PhotoCircle . When we got home I soon found out that the pictures can’t easily upload to the computer and that the only way they sorted into the albums on PhotoCircle was date of upload, not taken time & date. The only way to get them to my computer was with save to phone/iCloud or airdropped ONE BY ONE, BUT the photo info was NOT the original date info of the picture, it was the download/airdrop date. 😳😞😣😠 This certainly messes up photo organization and adds egads of time TRYING to straighten it out. So much for making sharing photos simple.

by Ztanlee

As other have stated, this is a useful app because it allows multiple users to share photos and they remain with only those subscribers of that specific album. I’ve created multiple albums for different trips and get those choose who I share with. However, you cannot change the sorting of the photos. I think this is because PhotoCircle destroys the metadata of the photos. Therefore the original date of creation or location info is not preserved. This also affects your own photo albums if you choose the download the photos to your phone’s phot album. The date of the photo becomes the date it was downloaded which I don’t see as useful to anyone. The frequency of the ads is obnoxious also. While I find this app useful, I don’t use it as often anymore because of these issues.

by Beans31209

I love photo circle because it’s given me an easy way to share all of my pictures I’ve taken with the groups of people I’m with and it allows them pick and choose which ones they want and makes for an easy process. I’m so thankful that my friend recommended it to me because it made things 100 times simpler. I just wish there was a web version because it would make transferring photos for big projects much easier. I know I am not the only one that has mentioned this before. I wish there was an online version because that would make it 100 times better.

by AKmountain

I love this app for so many reasons! It keeps my pictures organized, I can share the album with whomever I want, I can have other (once part of this app) people add pictures to my album to make sure I didn’t miss any pictures. This is great for parties or holiday celebrations! I can also download (save) their pictures to my camera roll. I also love the feature of adding comments. Also, the new video addition is perfect. We use this app with grandparents so they don’t miss anything! Now grandparents can’t complain that they don’t know what our son is up to! We can add comments to explain what the picture/video is.

by Sixgunner1976

I was searching for a photo app for an iPad I was sending to our elderly mother that would allow each family to send pics to her. The main thing was PhotoCircle had to be simple to use and allow each family unit to have their own area to put their pictures so they stay organized by family. During my quest for a photo app, I tried many different app. PhotoCircle won hands down. It’s simple to use so our elderly mother will use and will not feel intimidated and each family has their own album to put their picture into.

by ANW!!!

I love photo circle! It makes it easy to share pics with your friends! I wish you could choose a pic for the front of the circle. Now... the bad news. I have had photo circle for 2 years now and I am 11 1/2 and this has never happened. They started to put ads in PhotoCircle !!! Really is it that hard to just a an app without any ads?!?!?! Come on photo circle!!! Plus you can’t even x it out!!! Really?!? If these errors are fixed I will gladly change the stars to a 5,

-Thank You!

by Lifegoeswaterfllows

We have created photo circles amongst my very numerous family member around the country of USA keeping us all in touch - each holiday season titled differently , weddings family additions , trips it's the most awesome way for a group of people to share photos without having to download all of everyone's photos. - love it 5 stars
The only thing I wish the developer would create is a away to organize them after everyone adds their photos from a multiple day event into a circle it would be awesome to organize them all by the same times

by French Cider Lady

Loved PhotoCircle until the ads started showing up. Apparently there is no way to stop the ads unless I click on the annoying Ad Blocker ad that covers 2/3 of my screen when I open this app and tells me to pay $40 a year to block ads only on Safari. It won’t go away unless I click on the ad to read it. No cancel option. It’s not like I can upgrade my this app subscription to stop seeing the ads. this app is supposed to be a free app. This is not what I expected.

by CMBell715

Nothing else to be said, really. Easily the best photo/short video sharing app out there, especially if you’re wanting to keep viewership controlled.

Great for sharing pictures of our kids and keeping it limited to close friends and family.

Would love it if a “like/love” option on both pictures and comments were available. Sometimes it’s nice to let someone know that you’ve seen a comment/picture without actually having to type out a response.

by #likegames

I loved PhotoCircle now that you can even load up your videos! I would load my photos to PhotoCircle and then delete from my camera and I still have my photos in hand to share it to whoever wants to see it. I can also invite my friends who are in the photos to share our photos on the event that we did together. I also can even share to social media too. Beef you could do that and you could upload videos to PhotoCircle . Now it’s very convenient. I don’t have to buy iCloud GB, and some people are complaining that’s it’s difficult to get to the iCloud. Loved this!!!

by Elaine 💩

Our family uses this app to share pictures of the kids with all of the family - grandparents, aunts, and uncles! It’s a wonderful way to keep everything in one place and everyone can view, comment, and contribute.

Dev Team - Love the update, but PLEASE bring back the ability to select from albums instead of the phone’s entire gallery. This was a feature I used every time and now I have to scroll through dozens of photos to find my selects (which I favorite and easily upload since they are in their own folder).

by Sandsin

Don’t you hate it when you go to an event and you have to track everyone down afterwards for the pictures and videos of the night? PhotoCircle fixes that. Make an album for the event, invite everyone who was there and you have an album with a collection of everyone’s photos and videos. You can even save the ones you want to your phone.

PhotoCircle also fixes the problem of having to share pictures of your new baby with grandparents and aunts and uncles. Just make an album and invite everyone. Add photos to the album instead of sending to each person. It’s perfect!

by Allybug313

I love PhotoCircle and the ability to share photos with family and friends without putting them on social media. I would like to see this app make a change and allow the creator of an album to grant admin abilities to other people, as the first album I was added to is for my daughter by a family member and I don’t have any control over who can and cannot view the album without contacting the person who created it. If adding multiple admins or allowing a creator to switch responsibility to a specific album to another person were an option, PhotoCircle would be even that much better!!

by EzDSF

My family uses this app every day. During the lockdown, it was our go-to for keeping the grandparents updated on our son, who is now a toddler. We love the new update. It’s fresh and modern. The support team is super responsive. Whenever I’ve had a question or issue, they are quick to respond and incredibly friendly. In our last conversation, I learned about some of the new features they are working on. They seem to really care about families and privacy, and that’s why we love PhotoCircle. We simply don’t trust Facebook and the other big social media with photos of our family.

by O Get Real

WARNING: if you plan to save more then 1k Photo files, avoid using PhotoCircle. App does not have the capability to support large file exporting.

Support team is very unknowledgeable about app. Was only able to provide solutions like “try connecting to WiFi” or “log in and log out” after those two “solutions” did not work the rep said I would have to wait until the next release of PhotoCircle . When asked what other solutions they had in the interim, the response was “I don’t know what you mean. Why is this such a priority?”

I guess customer support isn’t a priority?

After then asking if we could be transferred to someone more knowledgeable about PhotoCircle process or if they could recommend another app we could use. My account was disabled.

VERY unprofessional. Which is a shame because I’ve been using PhotoCircle for a few years now and have always recommended it to friends and colleagues. I have a team of over 40 employees who were all using PhotoCircle and now we will have to find another app because of the unprofessional and unhelpful tech team.

by Fur Babies & Fitness

It would be helpful if it was possible to see who sent which photos when tapping their circle at the top of the album. When sharing numerous photos, it's impossible to search every opened photo one by one to see who sent it.
PhotoCircle has been failing during upload the past few times I've tried to add photos to an invited album and when I start an album. I am told to retry each photo and I share over 100 at a time sometimes. I have to delete the album, close PhotoCircle , restart and possibly do that process 2-3 times.

by Donnsj

this app is very easy to use. It is also an easy way to share a photo story, or an adventure with your friends and family.

One problem is that you cannot set one photo as the cover photo for an album.

A second problem that I’m having with PhotoCircle, is that you cannot modify the order of pictures, or add in a picture with in a group of already loaded pictures.

While it is a minor pain if you’ve only loaded three or four pictures, then realize you need to add another picture before those three or four pictures, you can delete those three or four pictures. Then adding in the one you want, then reinstalling the previously deleted pictures.

However, if you have 40 or 50 pictures installed downloaded uploaded, there ain’t no way I am going to delete those pictures, in order to upload one missing picture.

Until this MINOR bug is fixed, I would give PhotoCircle 3.5 stars. Once this is resolved, I will change to five stars

by Mgvphoto

Perfect for sharing photos privately with friends and family. One suggestion / feature request - could you integrate with Adobe Lightroom Mobile on iOS? Or desktop Lightroom classic CC? I use that to enhance and edit my photos, would be great to upload directly and save steps in the work flow. Would be a good selling point to consumer oriented photographers (ie wedding, family portraits, etc) too, as they could share shoots with clients.

Also, please add a paid ad-free version. I would gladly pay you directly for the work of building and maintaining a good product rather than have to suffer through capitalist nonsense bastardizing the purpose of PhotoCircle's existence.

by So....so

Our family has grown and we just had our first baby, but we don't want our child's face all over Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. This is our alternative!!! It really lets us capture the moments and share them with family & friends.

UPDATE: Our family has used PhotoCircle for over two years now. And we love it even more now with the video updates. We have documented over 6,000 pictures and videos of our family saved in one safe location.