Tinybeans Private Family Album

I would like to be able to recommend Tinybeans again. I think it has great features- not requiring accounts/apps for all family members, and the calendar view especially. but the uploading on iOS just has a lot of friction (I’m here writing this after battling for the third time this week and now being days behind on uploading our photos). Can’t choose personal albums to upload from (I would love to have a “Tinybeans” album and be able to upload from there unless/until native upload is possible. scrolling back more than a couple days in photos in upload view shows the same pictures over and over. native upload via share sheet shows Tinybeans, but is not functional. I subscribed on a legacy plan long ago and have referred many friends and family members to the app over the last nearly 7 years. I’ve uploaded daily. We have 4 other in our extended family still using it after the subscription model changed. In the last 6 months (maybe longer?) I don’t recommend it so much. People I referred more recently are not as impressed and end up choosing other options.

Why? Is this legal?

I’ve been a TinyBeans user for 5 years, and loved it until recently when I’ve found I can’t upload more than one photo at a time. It will let me upload more and appear like they’ve been saved. But when I close and open the app the photos are gone. I’ve written to the help email with no response. I’m sad to have to leave the app but am so frustrated with the amount of time I’ve wasted captioning, editing and uploading photos that just disappear without ever saving.

The quality of this app has dropped significantly over the years as the price has continues to increase substantially. I will not be renewing and I’m upset that I paid for the year in full. Half of the things I upload show an error when they’re trying to be viewed. The glitches are constant and it used to be such a fun part of my day to post my kiddos for my family who live far away but become the least enjoyable part of my day. It’s so frustrating to upload/delete videos 10+ times before they MAYBE upload. I’ve used this app for years and told so many friends about it. Why am I paying $75 for an app that doesn’t work? This is so irritating. I reached out to support and went through all the troubleshooting and nothing has fixed the bugs.

It’s set up like a private social media of photos for just you and those you choose, which is great. But on your home page you only see other people’s photo posts. I’d like to see the ones I post as well. You have to find the albums, which is a small icon on the add tab, in order to find what you posted.

I’ve had an unlimited account for 9 months and all of a sudden it says that I have a free account with limited uploads. I reached out to customer service (who I had to reach out to another time already) and they said they have no record of my paid account and asked if I had a receipt of the subscription. I sent them my receipt and have not heard back from them in 5 days. I’ve followed up and still didn’t get a response. I’m already invested since I have 9 months of memories added, but I recommend finding another app if you are just looking.

Y’all, this price increase is wild. Families are doing their best and at $40 this was a splurge for us. We’ve recommended this app but that’s going to stop because the increase is too much of a jump. What a disappointment. Y’all can do better. Be better.

We love this app and use it daily to share our daughter with friends and family. I was deeply disappointed to see that you are doubling the cost of this service in April. What happens to all of our pictures if we decide to not renew due to the exorbitant price tag you are now putting on a photo sharing app?????

For a paid app this has really degraded in its performance. Twice today alone I have tried uploading photos, which should be a basic feature, and they had silently not uploaded. The app used to work much better when it was simpler and focused.

I have been a faithful user of Tiny Beans since I was became pregnant with my 1st son about 6 years ago. Back then, it was free - no plans, ads only. I do not like social media and definitely do not want my precious baby’s face out there. Tiny Beans allows me to invite whomever I choose to download the app and browse my son (now, both sons’) digital album. The importer has about a 25 files/import limit. It would be great if more could be imported at once, like a bulk import or some kind of facial recognition software that identifies newly added images of my boys in my phone’s album then automatically imports to Tiny Beans upon opening/syncing the app. Honestly, I sometimes find myself on the app for an hour or more if I let things slide, you know, because life. After some time, the app then required a plan of $34.99/year (?) but I believe we were early adopters and were grandfathered-in the 1st year, but not the 2nd year (pandemic, 2nd baby, who knows really?). Now, it’s a whopping $74.99/year. Oof. I use the app the SAME EXACT way today as I did years ago. The Tiny Beans plan has more than doubled the original cost (after “free”). I’m willing to pay bc I love it, but here’s my problem… I CANNOT BULK EXPORT ANY MEMORIES!!! Now, it is technically possible to download each individual photo, 1 at a time (click the ellipsis, click download, wait 1.5 seconds, click “yes” to acknowledge it was downloaded). I don’t want to nor do I have the time to do that for 20k images. I have 2 kids, 2 dogs, a husband who acts like a kid & a dog & I’m babysittin all day as Director for a (you guessed it) SaaS startup. Okay so let’s work smarter, not harder. Let’s try the export feature. Fail. Every time I attempt an export, a zip file downloads, open the zip, nothing. Open all the files, nothing. Absolutely NOTHING in the exports. I have tried for weeks (months even) with different Tiny Beans representatives, different OS/browsers, etc. to no avail. The reps are kind but keep telling me, “Um, ma’am, it’s a bug and our developers are aware something-something-something next sprint…” Okay, so what’s the ETA? I cannot be the ONLY ONE unable to export! By my count, there should’ve been at least 7-8 sprints since “sprint” was dropped by a TB rep, but I still can’t export 😬 I *could* downgrade to the free version of Tiny Beans, but I want my entire library SAVED on another server or a backup disk where I feel safe it’ll never get lost. I’ve been paying for years and honestly… it really doesn’t matter why I want it - it is a clear statement on the Tiny Beans website that The ability to export your memories is included with the Tiny Beans + subscription (which I’ve been on. For years.) Also on the site is the “Tiny Beans Promise” (this is new or I’ve been under a rock - probably the latter): “You deserve the peace of mind that comes from knowing the companies you support will honor that trust and always have your back. That’s why we want to share our commitment to you and your family…” That’s fantastic! I’m aligned. Help me export my memories, please! If that’s not enough, I got one more suggestion. Something needs to be done about scrolling in the app (or lack thereof). It’s painfully difficult to scroll through photos organically (did I refer to technology as organic?). You have to scroll, find the pic you want (don’t pass it!) then tap the photo with your finger, then tap again to enlarge. But then, you’re stuck on that pic. You have to click it again to go back to scroll mode. I can’t think of any other app that functions this way. I got elderly parents/extended family here - too much tapping and they’re calling me left and right to fix their settings. Tiny Beans, I am a proud user of your app and would gladly continue patronizing your services plus dish about it to my friends and family (I have PLENTY) because your product is amazing! It’s fabulous! There’s not much out there like it. I just please ask that this can be resolved soon (export first, then scrolling). Pretty please with sugar on top! My rating will be FIVE STARS as soon as we can get this resolved! Love, SuperMama / Dora / SaaS Dir of Ops / 😘