Getting started
Four steps. It takes about five minutes, and you only ever do it once.
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Sign in here first, in a browser.
Go to home.ridgeware.com/dir2 and sign in with the
name and the one-time password Joe gave you. It will make you choose a
new password straight away — that is normal, and the one-time
password stops working the moment you do.
Do this before you open the app. The app has no way to create an account; it can only connect to one that already exists.
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Install the app.
It is not in the App Store. Joe will send you a TestFlight invitation
by email — install TestFlight from the App Store first,
then open his link and accept.
TestFlight is Apple’s own app for trying software before it is published. Use the same Apple ID the invitation was sent to, or it will not appear.
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Pair your phone.
Back in the browser, still signed in, open the menu at the top right
(the
⋮button) and choose Pair a phone…. It shows a short code. Type that code into the app.The code lasts fifteen minutes and is good for one phone. If it expires, just ask for another. -
Choose how far back to go, then let it run.
The app asks how much of your camera roll to send — a month, a
year, everything. Start small if you like; you can widen it later.
Then leave it on charge, on wi-fi, and it works through them.
The first run is the big one and can take hours. It picks up where it left off, so closing the app is fine.
What happens to your photographs
They go into your own folder on Joe’s server and nowhere else. No other service is involved and nothing is shared with anyone outside the family. The app never deletes anything from your phone.
Two things worth knowing
Albums come with you. If a photograph is in an album on your phone, that album becomes a tag on the Kloud, so the work you already did organising them is not lost.
It only sends what is on your phone. If a picture lives only in a text message and you have never saved it to your photos, the app cannot see it. Save it to your library first and it will go up on the next run.
If something looks wrong
Tell Joe. Useful things to say: what you tapped, what it said, and whether the app shows a number of photographs waiting.