Support

How Ansel works, and how to reach a person.

What Ansel is

Ansel looks through the photos on your iPhone, suggests books worth making (a trip, a holiday, a year at home), and designs each one as a proof you can page through. You say what to change by marking photos and writing a note in plain words. A book you love can be kept online at a link, or printed as a hardcover and mailed to you.

Reach a person

Write to support@ansel.pics. A person reads every message. It helps to say which iPhone you have, what you were doing, and what you saw; a screenshot is welcome.

TestFlight feedback

While Ansel is in TestFlight you can also send feedback from inside the app: take a screenshot, tap its thumbnail, and choose Share Beta Feedback. Or open the TestFlight app, tap Ansel, then Send Beta Feedback. If Ansel crashes, TestFlight offers to send the crash report; saying yes is the fastest way to get it fixed.

Photos access

Ansel works best with access to your whole library, because it suggests books by finding trips, days and occasions across it. With a limited selection it sees only the photos you pick. You can change this in the iPhone's Settings, under Privacy & Security, Photos, Ansel. Either way the library is read on your phone and is not uploaded; the Privacy page says exactly what is sent.

Looking through your library

Ansel shows its first ideas after your newest photos and goes on through the rest while the app is open, and for a while in the background when the phone is charging. The Ideas page says how far it has got. It rests when the phone is warm or in Low Power Mode, and offers, once, to tell you when it has been through them all.

Proofs

A new book is designed in two steps: your phone makes its own choice of photos at once, then Ansel's picture editor reviews it, usually within a minute or two. If your phone is offline you still get a proof from the phone's own choice, and the editor's pass runs when you are back online.

To change a proof, mark a photo Love it or Drop it, or write a note such as “fewer of the hotel, more of the two of us”, and ask for a new proof. Arrange lets you reorder photos and pick covers by hand.

The picture editor (the app calls it its design assistant) does a limited amount of work for each account in a month, about thirty proofs; the Ansel tab says how much is left. When it is used up, a new book is made from the phone's own choice, marking and arranging still work, and notes wait until the 1st.

Online editions

Keep it online publishes the proof at a link you can send to family. Anyone with the link can read and download the book. Publishing again updates the same link. To take one edition offline, write to us with its link. Deleting your account takes all of them offline. Otherwise an edition stays online until 400 days pass without anyone opening it.

Printing and reprints

Printing sends only the photos in that book. A person checks it, then it is printed as a hardcover and shipped to an address in the United States; allow one to two weeks. The price, shipping included, is shown before you order, and you can cancel until the book goes to the printer.

Once the book has been checked we email you how to pay, by Venmo or Zelle. Nothing prints until it is paid. Card payment may be offered later.

If a book arrives damaged or badly printed, send us a photo within 30 days and we reprint it free, with nothing to send back. A change of mind after printing means a reprint at the extra-copy price. Nothing prints until you have approved the proof.

Your account

Each phone has an account of its own, with no name on it. Sign in with Apple, on the Ansel tab, so the books you keep online belong to you and not to one phone. Sign out this phone leaves the books on the phone and the online editions where they are.

Deleting your data

On the Ansel tab, under Your data, Delete my account deletes at once what Ansel's server holds for you: the account, your online editions and their links, the picture editor's records, and the photo and print files of your orders. An order that has not reached the printer is cancelled, and refunded if you had paid; a book already at the printer still comes to you. A record of what was ordered and paid is kept for tax records, with no name or address on it. The books on your phone stay. Export my data, beside it, gives you a copy first. If you no longer have the app, write to privacy@ansel.pics from the email address on your order, with the link of any online edition.

Deleting the app removes the books and everything else Ansel keeps on your phone, except the account's key, which iOS keeps in the phone's keychain. It does not delete your account or take online editions down; do that first, with Delete my account. Your photo library is not touched.