Adding Your First Photos and Memories

How to add what matters — and why a memory doesn't always need a photo.

Date created: 2026-05-03

The heart of Pfotos is the stuff you add to it. Here's how to do that — and a few things worth knowing about what to add, not just how.

Adding a photo

1. Open Pfotos
2. Tap the + Add Memory / Add Photos / Upload button (the green pill at the bottom of the home screen)
3. Pick the photos / items you want to upload
4. Pfotos will ask you which PSilo and PHarvest the photo belongs to (or it'll create a new PHarvest if you'd like)
5. Add a date, a story, and the people who were there if you know them

You can add a single photo or several at once.

Adding a memory without a photo

This is one of the things that makes Pfotos different. You don't need a photograph to capture a memory.

A lot of family history doesn't have photos. Your grandmother's stories about growing up. The way your uncle laughed at his own jokes. The recipe nobody wrote down. The Sunday dinner that happened a thousand times but was never photographed.

To add a story-only memory:

1. Tap + Add Memory
2. Choose "Add a story" (or whatever the equivalent option is in your version)
3. Write what you remember
4. Add the people involved
5. Save

Story-only PHarvests are first-class citizens in Pfotos. They count just as much as the photos.

Adding a person to your family tree

Pfotos keeps a record of the people in your family — their names, dates, relationships, where they were from. You can add people from the Family Tree page in the app.

A few things to know:

• People you add who are living are always private. No exceptions. Only members of your PFarm can see them.
• People who have passed can optionally be added to the Public Commons (the searchable historical record). This is a choice you make per person, and you can change it later.
• One person can belong to multiple PFamilies — useful when families merge across branches.

Tagging photos and people

Once you've added photos and people, you can tag who's in each photo. This makes it possible to:

• Find every photo of a specific person quickly
• Help family members complete each other's memories ("hey, that's Aunt Dorothy!")
• Build a richer record over time

Tags are easy to add but cannot be removed by regular users — they only grow. This is a deliberate choice; we want the family record to accumulate, not get edited away. (PFarm owners and managers have additional tools for handling typos or mistakes.)

What if I'm not sure where something belongs?

Just save it anyway. PHarvests can be moved, renamed, and reorganized later. The important thing is to capture the memory while you remember it. Sorting can come later.