Viallo is a private photo-sharing app used to collect photographs for a funeral, a memorial or a celebration of life. The family creates one album and sends one link, or prints the album's QR code as an image to put on the order of service. Anyone who receives it can add photographs from any browser on an iPhone or an Android phone with no app, no account, no password and no name to type. Photographs of prints work: a picture of a print, taken on a phone, is enough. Images only - video is not supported. Originals are kept at full resolution and can be downloaded at any time at no extra cost, and the link has no expiry date and no download deadline. Any number of people can contribute on every plan, including the free plan, which holds 200 photographs; photographs other people add are counted against the account holder's own plan. Albums are unlisted and are not indexed by search engines. Photographs are stored in the EU on Cloudflare R2 and are never used to train AI models. Operated by Zava Solutions LLC.
For a funeral or memorial
Everyone who knew them has a few photographs. Nobody has them all.
One link that anyone can add to - no app, no account, nothing to sign up for. It works on any phone, the pictures arrive at full size, and there is no closing date, so people can still add one in a month.
- Free to start ·
- Nothing for anyone to install ·
- Private to the people you send it to
One card, handed out at the door.
- 1
Share
Create the album and send the link, or print the code. You can set it up weeks ahead - the link works before there's a single photo in the album.
- 2
They add
They tap, pick, done. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, nothing to type. Same on iPhone and Android.
- 3
You keep
Every photo arrives at full resolution, not a shrunken copy. There's no expiry date and no download deadline, and you can download the originals at any time, at no extra cost.
The code in step one is a single image you download and print. In most families the useful place for it is the order of service. Everybody there takes one home, and a lot of people keep them. Months later somebody finds it in a drawer, remembers the photograph they meant to send, and the link still opens, because there is no closing date on it.
The best photographs are usually held by the people least likely to install anything
The pictures you actually want - them at twenty, the wedding, the ones from before you were born - are mostly not on a phone. They are with their sister. Their friend from work. The neighbour who has known them since 1974.
Those are, on average, the oldest people you will ask, and they are the ones who will quietly not do it if there is an account to make. Not because they can't - because it is one more thing, in a week where everything is one more thing, and because it feels like it might go wrong.
So there is nothing. They open the link, choose the photographs, and they are done. Nothing to install, nothing to join, no password, no name to type. And if what they have is prints rather than files, a photograph of a photograph - taken on a phone, on the kitchen table, in decent light - works, and is worth having.
Will people actually use it?
Some of them. Not all of them - and anyone who quotes you a percentage is guessing.
The numbers you'll see on other sites - 85%, 90%, 93% - come with no sample size, no date, and no explanation of how they were counted. We're not going to add another one to the pile. What we can tell you is what seems to actually move the number, from people who've done it:
Say what it is when you send it. This is usually the hardest part, so here is something to copy and change:
We are putting together the photographs of Dad - for Saturday, and for afterwards. If you have any, from any time at all, you can add them here: [link]
There is nothing to sign up for; it just opens. The old ones are the most valuable, and ordinary ones count - the everyday photographs are often the best. If yours are prints, a picture taken on your phone is completely fine.
Thank you. There is no rush; the link stays open.
Two things worth keeping in. Say that ordinary photographs count - people hold back the everyday ones, and those are often the ones nobody else has. And say that prints are fine, or the people with the oldest pictures will assume the whole thing is not for them.
Ask a second time, a few weeks later. Thank-you cards are conventionally written two to four weeks after the service. That is a second moment when the family is already writing to everyone who came, and most people mean to look properly the first time and then the week gets away from them.
Tell them prints are fine. A photograph of a photograph, taken on a phone in decent light, is how most of the oldest pictures end up in these albums. The people with a shoebox under the bed are usually the people with the pictures nobody else has.
This is the part where we're different. With most of these tools the second ask is pointless, because the upload window has already shut - 24 hours on some free plans, a few months on others. Ours doesn't shut. If someone finds three good photos eight months later, they can still add them.
The photo you get back is full resolution, not a shrunken copy
Send a photo through a group chat and it gets shrunk on the way - that's how group chats work, and it's why the photo your friend sent you looks fine on your phone and falls apart the moment you try to print it.
Photos uploaded to Viallo keep their full resolution - up to 500 MB each, without the group-chat shrinking that turns a 24-megapixel photo into something that falls apart in print. (Photos from an iPhone are saved as high-quality JPEGs; everything else is kept as it arrived.) When you come back to make the book you keep meaning to make, they'll still be big enough.
Gathering the photographs for the slideshow
The photographs come in here, and whoever is making the slideshow gets a file. Download the originals at full size, at any time, at no extra cost, and send them the file the way you would any others.
The funeral director does not need to do anything. For a large album, do the download on a computer rather than a phone - phone browsers cannot build a download that big and will stop partway.
What happens to them afterwards
This part is worth reading properly, because it is the part that usually gets glossed over.
Services built for collecting funeral photographs generally hold them for a while and then stop. Forty-five days on one. Twelve months on several. We are not going to do that, and here is what is true instead.
There is no expiry date and no download deadline. Nothing counts down. There is no date by which you have to have saved everything, and the link keeps working - the code from the order of service still opens next year.
The originals can be downloaded at any time, at full size, at no extra cost. Not a compressed export, not a paid archive - the files as they arrived. Anyone you share the album with can take their own copy.
One limit, said plainly. The free plan holds 200 photographs. If your account goes over what the plan you are on holds, the oldest photographs are hidden a few days later rather than deleted, and they come back, up to what your plan then holds, if you subscribe again within thirty days. After that they are gone. Photographs other people add are counted the same way, against the account, so it is worth knowing that before you send the link widely.
And the honest part. Nobody can promise you a company will still be here in twenty years, and anyone who does is guessing. What we can tell you is that nothing here depends on it: the photographs are yours, in full, whenever you want them, with nothing to pay to get them out. If you would like a copy on your own hard drive as well, take one. That is the version of "kept" that does not depend on anyone, and we would rather you had it.
A few practical things
Only the people you send it to. The album is not public, is not listed anywhere, and search engines cannot find it. You choose who gets the link. You can switch a link off later and the photographs stay where they are. The photographs are stored in the EU, and nobody's photographs are used to train AI models.
It is simple enough for anyone. There is no login screen, which is where these things usually fall over. Somebody opens the link, chooses the photographs, and they are done. That is the whole of it, on any phone, new or old.
You can keep your own copy. Download the originals whenever you like - all of them, at full size, at no extra cost. Put them on a hard drive, give a copy to your brother. They are your photographs. On a phone, a very large album has to come down in a few goes rather than one.
It is free to start. The free plan holds 200 photographs, which is more than most families need - a slideshow at the service is usually well under a hundred. If the family gathers more than that there is a paid plan at $5.99 a month or $59 a year, and it covers everything else you ever put in the account, not just this one album.
Questions people ask
Do people need an account, or an app?
No. They open the link, choose their photographs, and they are done. Nothing to install, nothing to join, no password, and no name to type in. It works the same on an iPhone as on an Android phone.
Some of the family are not good with phones. Will they manage?
That is the case it was built for. There is no login screen, which is where most of these things go wrong, so there is nothing to get stuck on. The link opens onto a page with the album's name on it.
Most of the old photographs are prints. Can we use those?
Yes. A photograph of a photograph, taken on a phone in decent light, works and is worth having - it is how most of the oldest pictures end up in these albums. A scanner is better if somebody has one, but do not let that be the reason a picture does not make it in.
Can people add photographs after the service?
Yes, and most will. There is no closing date on the link, so it still works in a month, or next year. It is worth asking again when you write the thank-you cards; that is usually when people go looking properly.
Who can see the album?
Only the people you give a link to. Albums aren't public, aren't listed and aren't indexed by search engines. Anyone with the upload link can add photos; you decide separately who gets a link to view. You can switch any link off at any time, and the photos stay.
Can I remove something?
Yes, anything, at any time. If a photograph arrives that the family would rather was not there, you can take it out.
Can people upload video?
Photos only. If someone films the speeches, they'll need to send those another way.
How long do you keep them?
There is no expiry date and no download deadline - nothing counts down, and there is no date by which you must have saved everything. One limit is worth knowing: if your account goes over what your plan holds, the oldest photographs are hidden a few days later rather than deleted, and they come back, up to what your plan then holds, if you subscribe again within thirty days. After that they are gone. You can download every original, at full size, at any time, with nothing extra to pay to get them out.
Can we download them all and keep our own copy?
Yes, and it is worth doing. You can download the originals at full size at any time, at no extra cost, and share that copy with whoever you like. One thing to know: for a large album, do it on a computer rather than a phone - phone browsers cannot build a download that big and will stop partway.
Does the funeral director need to do anything?
No. If they are making the slideshow, download the photographs and send them the file the way you would any others.
What does it cost?
It is free to start, and the free plan holds 200 photographs - enough for most families, since a slideshow is usually well under a hundred. If the family gathers more than that there is a paid plan at $5.99 a month or $59 a year, and it covers everything else you ever put in the account, not just this.
If you're doing this now
Create the album, send the link to whoever you are thinking of, and add to it as things come in. It does not have to be finished by the service - the link keeps working afterwards.
Free to start · Nothing for anyone to install
If you arrange funerals and would like something to hand to families, get in touch.