What a family needs from a photo library
- One library for everyone. Photos of the same birthday end up on four phones. A family library should gather them in one place, not four separate accounts.
- Full quality, kept. Originals stay as they were taken, and you can always download them.
- Sorted for you. Nobody has time to make albums by hand: people, places and dates should be found automatically.
- Shared on purpose. Grandparents should see the new photos of the kids without joining a social network or seeing anyone else’s.
- Yours. No ads around your memories, and your photos not used to train AI.
Mantel at a glance
| Mantel | |
|---|---|
| Who it’s for | A family: one library several people add to and look through |
| Free storage | 5 GB, just for photos and videos |
| Paid plans | 250 GB for $3.99 a month; 1 TB for up to 5 people for $9.99; 3 TB for $24.99 (pricing) |
| Finds people and places | Yes, and you can search by person, place or date |
| Sharing | Invite family into the library, or share one album with a link that works without an account |
| Ads and AI training | No ads; your photos are never used to train AI |
| Prints and books | Photo books, prints, canvases and mugs made from your library |
Google Photos’ storage comes out of your Google account, shared with Gmail and Drive, and it’s built around each person’s own account, with shared albums and partner sharing on top. If that already works for your family, there’s no need to move.
When Google Photos is the better choice
If you mostly keep your own photos, live inside Google’s apps, and like its editing tools, Google Photos is hard to beat. Mantel is for when the photos belong to a family rather than a person, and you want one private place everyone can add to.
Moving your photos across
- Download your photos from Google with Google Takeout (takeout.google.com, choose Google Photos).
- Create a free Mantel library and add the folders: Mantel reads the dates and places in the photos, and finds the people, as they arrive.
- Invite the family, so their photos join the same library.
Mantel is a private photo library for families: everyone’s photos and videos in one place at full quality, sorted by people, places and dates for you, and shared only with the people you invite. Encrypted, no ads, never used to train AI.
Start free with 5 GB