The mechanics
How an automatic photo book actually gets made
No app to check, no album to build. Here's exactly what happens, step by step, between connecting your camera roll and a real book showing up at your door.
1. Connecting your camera roll
SparksSimple links to Google Photos with read-only access — it can never post, edit, delete, or share anything in your library. That connection is what feeds every book; disconnect it anytime from your dashboard and future books simply stop generating.
2. A safety floor that can't be turned off
Before anything else happens, every photo passes through hard filters: no nudity or explicit content, no screenshots, no sensitive documents (IDs, boarding passes, mail with an address on it), and no obvious blur. This step runs identically whether your book is automatic or manually picked — it's a floor, not a preference.
3. Scoring and picking the final photos
For automatic books, what's left after safety filtering gets deduplicated (so a 12-shot burst becomes one good frame), scored for sharpness and composition, and balanced across the whole period so one afternoon doesn't crowd out the rest of the month.
4. Or picking them yourself
Prefer control? Flip on manual mode and skip the automatic scoring — you pick straight from the same pre-filtered, safe pool, so the hard rules (no nudity, no blur, no screenshots) still apply even when you're choosing.
5. Layout, printing, and shipping
Once a book is finalized, its photos are laid out in your chosen style — one photo per page, an even grid, or a magazine-style mix — composed into a print-ready file, and submitted to a real print-on-demand partner. By default this all happens with no click from you; turn on manual review if you'd rather approve each book before it prints.
Questions, answered
Which photo services can I connect?+
Google Photos today. Apple Photos/iCloud support is built the same way and is next on the roadmap. We only ever request read-only access, and you can disconnect at any time from your dashboard.
What if it picks a photo I don't want printed?+
Books are fully hands-off by default — each one ships automatically the moment it's curated, no click required. Prefer to see it first? Flip on manual review in preferences and every book waits for your approval before it prints.
Do you look at every photo in my library?+
Only enough to score quality and detect duplicates and sensitive content. Photos are never sold, shared, or used to train third-party models.
Can I skip a month or cancel?+
Anytime, from your dashboard. Skipping a month doesn't lose your photos — they roll into next month's pool.
This month is already happening. Let it become a book.
Connect your camera roll in a couple of minutes — your first book preview is free to see.