Support
Picalator for iPad
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Getting started
- Open Picalator and allow it to see your photos.
- Tap the screen to bring up the controls, then tap the gear.
- Choose Albums and tick the album you want.
That is it. Add photos to that album from any of your devices and they turn up on the frame by themselves.
Things worth knowing
Tap the screen for the controls. They fade away on their own.
Swipe right for the next photo, left to go back through the ones you just saw. The slideshow carries on from there.
Press and hold a photo to keep it on screen longer, adjust its brightness, or take it out of the rotation. Your photos in Apple Photos are never changed.
Pinch during a slideshow to take a closer look. The frame waits while you look and carries on when you let go.
Single picture mode shows one photo in a picture frame. Pinch to zoom and drag to position it — so you can crop out the wall, or the frame that was in your own shot — then lock it in place so it stays put.
Turn the screen off overnight and while you are out. Set the times in settings. On older iPads the backlight glows faintly even behind a black screen, so Picalator dims the display right down as well, and brings it back up gently just before it is due to wake. Touch the screen at any time and the brightness returns straight away.
Captions name where a photo was taken and the month it was taken in. Far from home Picalator names the district; close to home it names the spot itself, since your own city is not news to you. Tell it your home town in settings and it works the rest out from the GPS already inside your photos — it never asks for your location to do this. Either half of the caption can be turned off.
The map button shows you exactly where a photo was taken, on a small map inside the frame. Tap the screen for the controls, then tap the map icon. A pin marks the spot. Done puts you straight back in the slideshow, and Open in Maps hands it to the Maps app if you want a proper look around. Like the captions, this reads the location the camera recorded in the photo itself — it never asks where you are.
Keep it plugged in. The screen stays awake while Picalator is running, which is rather the point of a photo frame. You can turn that off in settings.
Common questions
A photo in my album is not showing up.
Picalator plays photographs only — videos in an album are skipped. To see what the app can actually find, go to Settings → Album check. It lists each album you have chosen with the number of photos Picalator can see, next to the number Photos says the album holds. If those two numbers differ, the difference is videos or other items.
I have just added photos and they are not on the frame yet.
They join the rotation within a few photos rather than immediately, so that adding a batch does not play them all in a block. If they have not appeared after a couple of minutes, check Album check as above.
I cannot see all my albums in the list.
Picalator lists albums that have photos in them. If you have just created an album, give Photos a moment to catch up, then leave the album list and come back.
If you see very few albums, check that you granted access to all photos rather than a selection: Settings app → Privacy & Security → Photos → Picalator.
Where is the weather?
Weather needs location access. Check the Settings app → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Picalator. You can also turn weather off entirely in Picalator's own settings.
Some photos don't have a map button.
That is deliberate, not a fault. The button only appears when the photograph itself recorded where it was taken. Scanned photographs, screenshots, pictures saved from messages or the web, and anything taken with location turned off carry no coordinates — so rather than open a map on the wrong place, Picalator doesn't offer one.
A few photos also carry a placeholder position written by a camera that could not get a fix. Those are skipped for the same reason.
Can I use a shared album?
Yes, and it is one of the nicest ways to use it. Tick a shared album and the photos your family add appear on the frame by themselves.
Will it change or delete my photos?
No. Picalator can only read your photo library. Adjustments you make — keeping a photo on screen longer, changing its brightness, taking it out of the rotation, cropping a single picture inside its frame — affect only what Picalator shows you. The originals in Apple Photos are left exactly as they are.
I reinstalled the app and my settings came back.
That is deliberate. Your choices are kept in your own private iCloud storage so that your devices agree with each other, and they survive a reinstall. Nothing about them is visible to anybody else, including me.
Which iPads does it run on?
Any iPad running iOS 16 or later. Older iPads are exactly what this was made for.
Still stuck?
Email support@alator.app and tell me what you are seeing. If you can, say which iPad you have and what version of iOS it is running — Settings app → General → About.