How to send a family newsletter to grandparents
In short
Famileze, a private family archive on iPhone, lays out your photos and captions as a family newsletter and emails it to the grandparents and relatives you choose. Build it from a month, a week, a day, a folder or hand-picked photos. For relatives without email, it turns the newsletter into pictures you can send on WhatsApp or Messages.
Why a newsletter, not a post
Not every photo belongs on social media. A newsletter goes to the handful of people who genuinely care (grandparents, godparents, the aunt overseas) and lands in their inbox, not a feed. No likes, no comments from strangers, nothing ranked or resurfaced.
Before you start: choose who gets it
- Open the menu and tap Contacts.
- Tap ＋ Add a contact for each grandparent or relative, with their email address.
- Tap the 📰 button beside each person who should get the newsletter. It shows 📰 ✅ when they're on the list.
You can also add someone at the last minute, just before you send. Under Settings › 📰 Newsletter, ✍️ Signs off as shows the family name your newsletter is sent under.
Step 1: Start a newsletter
There are three ways in:
- From the Newsletter page. Open the menu, tap Newsletter, then ✍️ Create a newsletter. It opens on the most recent month that has photos.
- From a folder. Open a folder, say "Spain trip" or "School drawings", and tap 📰 Newsletter. It starts with everything in that folder.
- From the timeline. Tap the 📰 button on the timeline, tap the photos you want, then 📰 Make a newsletter with…
Step 2: Choose what's in it
Under What's in it, tap one of the chips:
- Month: the whole month (the starting choice).
- Week: Monday to Sunday.
- Day: one big day, like a birthday or a first day of school.
- Dates: any range, from one date to another.
- All (when you started from a folder) or Picked (when you picked from the timeline).
To narrow it down, tap ☑ Choose photos and tick only the ones you want. ↻ All of them again brings back everything in the range. A newsletter holds up to 50 photos. If your range has more, the app says so, and you can shorten the dates or choose.
Photos come in on their own; videos don't go into a newsletter.
Step 3: Make it yours
- Tap the title to rename it. It starts as "The Family News", or the folder's name.
- Tap under a photo to write or change its caption. A line from you means more to a grandparent than the photo alone.
- Use ＋ Add text for a note ("Ella lost her first tooth!"), and ＋ Add photo or 🖼 Add from my moments for anything you missed.
- Tap 👁 Preview to see exactly what they'll get.
Step 4: Email it
- Tap 📧 Save & email family.
- A sheet asks Who gets this newsletter? Tap a name to include them or leave them out, or tap ＋ Add someone new. Your choice is remembered for next time.
- Tap 📧 Send to… and the number of people.
Each person gets their own copy, so nobody sees anyone else's address. The app tells you how many it reached, and if an address didn't go through, it says which one so you can fix it under Contacts. Not ready yet? Tap 💾 Save instead. It waits on the Newsletter page, where 📧 Send to family sends it later.
Grandparents can reply to the email to send a comment back. It arrives in your Famileze Inbox, and you decide whether to keep it. (A reply is ordinary email, like anything sent to your family address, so it isn't end-to-end encrypted either.)
Step 5: Share it as pictures, for relatives without email
- Tap 📤 Save & share as pictures — WhatsApp, Messages… in the composer, or 📤 Share as pictures on any saved newsletter.
- Each page becomes a picture, and the last one carries the Famileze code.
- Tap 📤 Share, then choose WhatsApp, Messenger, Messages or Mail. A long newsletter is shared in sets of 30 pictures, one set after another.
Those pictures go through your iPhone's own share sheet, straight to the app you choose. They don't pass through Famileze, and we keep no copy. Once sent, they're wherever you sent them.
Scheduling it for later
On iPhone, a newsletter goes when you tap send. If you'd like it to go out at a set time, such as the first Sunday of every month, that's one of the things the free Mac companion adds: tap ⏳ Publish later, choose Schedule for later, and pick a time under Send at. Famileze sends it at that time, even with the computer switched off, and you can cancel it before then.
Is the newsletter encrypted?
Plainly, no, and it's worth knowing why.
Your archive (the timeline, folders, calendar, health records, lists and letters) is encrypted on your phone before it leaves, and what we store is unreadable to us. A newsletter is different. It has to be readable in Grandma's inbox, in an ordinary email app, with no Famileze and no key. So outbound newsletters are one of three named exceptions to end-to-end encryption. The newsletter's words and photos, and your recipients' addresses, pass through our relay and our email provider in readable form so they can be delivered. Recipient addresses aren't kept as any kind of list. A scheduled newsletter is held until it's sent.
The rule of thumb: once it's sent, a newsletter is as private as any email. That's why you choose exactly what goes in.
What it doesn't do
- It can't schedule from the iPhone yet. Scheduling is on the free Mac companion.
- No videos. A newsletter is photos and words.
- Up to 50 photos per newsletter. For a big holiday, make two.
- It isn't end-to-end encrypted once sent. It's ordinary email, by design.
Questions parents ask
- Do the grandparents need Famileze?
No. They get an ordinary email, or pictures in WhatsApp or Messages. Each newsletter ends with a small Famileze code and a link, in case they'd like to start their own.
- Can the people who receive it change anything?
No. They can read it, and reply with a comment that comes back to your Inbox.
- Can I send one newsletter to just a few people?
Yes. In the Who gets this newsletter? sheet, tap names to leave people out. That choice carries over to your next newsletter, so tap them back in when you want.
- Can I build a newsletter from one folder, like a holiday?
Yes. Open the folder and tap 📰 Newsletter. It starts with that folder's photos, and you can narrow it by dates or by choosing photos.
- Is sending a newsletter extra?
No. Sending newsletters is part of the Famileze subscription.