BackThen - Baby Book & Albums

Shown for US

• VIP - payment — $6.49/month (derived from the IAP title)

Last verified 4 Sep 2026

Shown for US

4.8 28686 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Still a Great Service

   I understand why others are frustrated, but my read on the situation is that Lifecake’s founders were forced to shut down by Canon shortly after their acquisition of the service (the real bait and switch). Luckily, they were forward-thinking enough to preserve the ability to continue operating independently under this new brand and to seamlessly be able to transfer all data (photos, videos, and comments) to the new app. The biggest difference is that storage under Lifecake was per user not per family, so in my case my wife and I were the main ones posting to Lifecake and neither of us had posted over the 1GB limit per person (though we were getting close). In Back Then, that limit applies to the whole family’s collection (which actually makes more sense; we always found it a bit odd in Lifecake) so we are over the limit and must pay the monthly subscription. I was frustrated at first but the pricing seems similar to what I recall the paid plan would have been and we were obviously about to start having to pay either way. I hope enough others are able to get past their initial frustration, recognize that this is surely not what the founders wanted or an intentional bait and switch, and decide (as I have) that it is worth paying to keep our little community of family and friends moving right along and connecting over a shared love of our son. I would hate to see Back Then fail because of what seems like many users’ misreading of the situation (which must be very frustrating not to be able to publicly correct). Only wishlist item would be to bring back the ability to access the service via the web for non-smartphone users but this doesn’t affect our family too much.

   MattGJarvis · 4 Sep 2026

2. 5/5Unfortunate changes

   Our family has had Back Then for quite a while now for the three kids and family photos and it’s awesome as far as being able to share in one app rather than sending photos out, but they’ve recently instituted a NO download policy for pictures and videos which is supposedly for privacy reasons however since you have to have a paid subscription and users need login credentials it makes no sense. This is why I took one star off. It’s a problem… what’s the point of sharing pictures if you can’t download the ones that you like rather than having to log onto the app every time you want to see photos? The monthly price hasn’t gone up, so I think it’s a bandwidth issue. BT really needs to up their bandwidth or whatever the problem is and get rid of this privacy policy because it’s ridiculous and upsetting and I’m sure users are going to start dropping off.

   Lightmeup · 4 Sep 2026

3. 5/5Now more than ever, we need this app to stay connected

   I was a devotee of the app “Lifecake” for many years and absolutely crushed when its parent company made the decision to close up shop. Happily, BackThen stepped up to fill the need. I upload photos, movies, and stories from my phone and Back Then automatically places them in chronological order within the times lines of each of my kids. Given that we can’t fly to see overseas relatives (and even family within the country) due to the current situation, Back Then helps us stay connected. All my children’s grandparents love checking in with Back Then each day and seeing what their grandkids are up to. Transitioning from Lifecake was easy... thank you so much BackThen team! I highly recommend this easy to use, creative, fun app. No more than ever, we need this app to help us feel closer and to share (virtually) what we can’t share in real life.

   Lifecake devotee · 4 Sep 2026

4. 5/5Exactly what we needed

   This app is perfect for us. We have been using it for almost 6 years at this point and it’s simple and exactly what we needed. We can share all of our pictures with all of our family, everyone has access at the same moment, and we have a wonderful archive of our kids’ lives. Any time someone asks to see our kids we can pull up the app and know we will only see pics of the kids, no random pictures of the shoes I saw at the store the other day, and only the people I want to have access to these photos can see them. I don’t like to post on social media and this app allows people to log in and see exactly how many photos they want of our kids, whether it’s one photo per year or 10 photos a day.

   Kristy221 · 4 Sep 2026

5. 5/5Fantastic Photo Archiving App for Parents

   Intuitive, slick photo and video archiving app that allows family to share photos in a secure, private space that allows parents, grandparents, and others to comment, add content, and have a photo archive with them whenever they want to access it. Allows large photo/video uploads as well as provides access to download your archive whenever you want. Formerly Lifecake - which was unfortunately downsized by the parent company during the pandemic of 2020 - the staff even made the transition of 100s of gigabytes of photos from the former app to this one seamless and relatively rapid. Have been an active user of Lifecake -> BackThen for 4 years and highly recommend it.

   Spondyloptosis · 4 Sep 2026

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