JoyFlips: Connecting old print photos and family storytelling

JoyFLIPS is a new, completely free iPhone photo scanning/editing/sharing/storing app.

With the JoyFLIPS app, you can quickly and easily make high-quality scans of loose photos, photos still in albums, or even those hanging on your refrigerator for that matter; crop, filter, adjust color/lightness/shadow and more with a variety of editing features; add captions, dates, locations, names and keywords to make them easily searchable; create albums and share with others; scan the back of a photograph and have that forever connected to the front side scan; and more features are constantly being added.

JoyFLIPS makes it super easy to scan and share your own photo collection with others — friends, family members — and vice versa. Who in the family has all those old family photos? Why not scan them and share them with everyone via JoyFLIPS. It’s so quick and so simple!

Tip: Next family gathering? Don’t fall asleep on the sofa — instead, volunteer to scan an album or two! Are the kids bored while the grownups talk? Have them scan!

Not only is scanning from your smartphone easy and convenient, but the cameras within an iPhone are known for their high quality images. Combine that with the programming within the JoyFLIPS app to auto-focus and auto-stabilize, even the shakiest of hands can take perfect scans.

And quickly! The name JoyFLIPS refers to the ability to hold your phone in one hand and quickly flip through a stack of photos while it scans them.

True story: I scanned an entire shoebox full of old family photos
in less than 30 minutes.  

Your scanned photos are stored in the cloud (free unlimited storage), with thumbnails accessible on your phone. This way you still have access to thousands of your photos at any time you have Internet access, without using up your phone’s memory.

The JoyFLIPS.com Website

While all of the heavy hitting is done with the app, you can also view your photos by signing in to your account on the JoyFlips.com website. From the website, you may import your already-scanned photos too. I love the idea of being able to easily search ALL of my photos at any time and be able to show off that photo of my great great grandmother, or my daughter’s 3rd grade Halloween costume. It will even pull in your camera roll from your phone.

Stop and think about that for a minute:
Access to your ENTIRE scanned photo collection on your phone. 

Some of the features coming to the app on the near horizon include the ability to add voice captions that will also convert to searchable text, and also the ability to search external sites for historical newspapers and video to connect to your family members. An Android version is also expected to be ready soon.

JoyFlips is also now partnering with FamilySearch.org, the most trusted name in family history and genealogy research, to help connect all of those old photographs and memories to genealogical research. The press release announcing this can be found here.

Download the app on your iPhone and try it out! Be sure to check for updates so that you don’t miss any of the new features as they are released. And if you’re at RootsTech 2017, stop by and say hello, and be maybe even root for us at the Innovator Showdown (we’re finalists!!).

 

Disclaimer: I’ve been on the beta team for JoyFLIPS for nearly a year now, working with an amazing group of folks that are really devoted to making this app great — and they sure have! I have not received any compensation for writing this article — as with everything that I write, it is entirely my own opinion and thoughts, and only shared because I believe it to be good information.

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