Making a memorial slideshow on your phone

Short answer: you can make a memorial slideshow on your phone in an evening or two. Gather the photos into one album, turn the phone sideways, and keep the effects simple. Then save it at full quality and watch it on a big screen before the service. The steps below keep the small screen from working against you.

Before you open an app

A few minutes of setup saves real frustration later. Phones run out of space and battery at the worst moments.

• Free up storage. A finished slideshow is a large file. Clear old videos or downloads you no longer need.
• Plug in the charger. Building and saving a video uses a lot of battery.
• Turn on Do Not Disturb. Messages and calls will come in this week. Let them wait while you work.
• Pick a quiet time. This is tender work. Give yourself room to pause when a photo stops you.

One album, nothing else in it

Your camera roll holds thousands of pictures. Do not build from there. Make a new album just for the slideshow and add photos to it as you find them.

This keeps screenshots, receipts and parking photos out of the video. It also lets you see the whole set in one place. When the album feels full, stop and count. Our guide to how many photos a funeral slideshow needs helps you trim it down.

Put the photos in order inside the album before you start the video. Moving them around later, inside an editing app, is harder on a small screen.

Getting the full-size photos from relatives

Many of the best recent photos live on other people's phones. How they reach you matters.

• Ask for the original files. Some messaging apps shrink photos when they send them. They look fine on a phone and blurry on a TV.
• Use a shared album or a cloud link. These usually keep the full size. Ask relatives to add to one place.
• Skip screenshots. A screenshot of a photo loses detail. Ask for the photo itself.
• Old prints already saved as files are welcome. If a cousin has turned the family albums into files, ask for those.

The sideways question

This is the most common surprise with a phone slideshow. Phones take tall photos. Televisions and projector screens are wide.

Set your project to a wide, landscape shape before you add anything. Tall photos will then sit in the middle with space on each side. That is normal and looks calm. Many apps can fill the sides with a soft, blurred copy of the same photo.

Avoid stretching or zooming a tall photo to fill the screen. It crops off heads and hands. When you check your work, hold the phone sideways, the way the room will see it.

Working on a small screen

A phone screen hides problems that a big screen shows. A few habits help.

• Zoom in on faces. Make sure each face is sharp and not cut off at the edge.
• Keep transitions gentle. One simple fade throughout feels peaceful. Spinning or flashing effects pull attention from the person.
• Go easy on filters. Let the photos look like themselves.
• Check the length. Our guide to how long a funeral slideshow should be helps you match the video to the service.
• Save as you go. Work in short sessions and make sure the app keeps your progress.

For the soundtrack, choose what feels like them. The songs you pick are for your family's personal use, not for resale. Please be aware that licensing or clearing any songs you choose is your responsibility. If you want ideas by mood and style, see our guide to songs for a funeral slideshow.

Some families find a phone editor fiddly. If that is you, Create, our make-it-yourself memorial video maker, works in the phone's browser. You add your photos, choose the music, and watch the whole film before paying, from $99.

Saving the finished video

When it feels right, save or export at the highest quality the app offers. Choose the largest size, not the one marked for messaging.

Then watch it once all the way through on a television or laptop. Listen for the music ending too early or too late. Look for any photo that turned blurry when it grew.

To share it, upload the file to a cloud link and send that link to the family and the funeral home. A link keeps the full quality, where a text message may not. It also reaches relatives who cannot travel.

Keep a copy on a second device or in cloud storage. The phone that made it will not last forever, and the video should.

If your slideshow is for a beloved animal, Create for a pet memorial video follows the same simple steps.

Located in Westchester, NY, we serve families nationwide through our fully remote platform.