Everyday life
The kids, the pets, dinner together, a project, a visit. No need to wait for a holiday or a perfectly posed picture.
McCormick Family Pictures
A little closer,
one photo
at a time.
Send in the everyday snapshots, old favorites, and family photos you'd like Grandma to see on her TV.
Attach your photos and choose Actual Size or Original Quality when asked.
From your phone to her TV
Email your photos
Open your email app, attach a few pictures, and send them to the address above.
McPics checks them
The slideshow computer collects new photos and checks their format and quality before adding them to the rotation.
Grandma enjoys them
The photos appear on her TV alongside the rest of the collection. She doesn't need to open an app or press a button.
What should I send?
You don't need
a special occasion.
A few pictures from your day are welcome. Older photos are just as good.
A memory worth revisiting
Old family photos, holidays, reunions, and favorite trips. Scanned prints are welcome, too.
The original photo
Attach the original file rather than a screenshot or a small preview. It will hold up better on a TV.
Something for her room
Keep it family-friendly. Only send photos you're comfortable having displayed in Grandma's room.
The story behind McPics
Made for Grandma.
Shared by all of us.
McCormick Family Pictures was created with love for Grandma.
Grandma has always been such an important part of my life, and this project was built from a place of love and gratitude. The idea is simple: to give family an easy way to share everyday moments, old memories, and familiar faces with her.
Photos sent here can show up right on her TV, bringing a little more connection, comfort, and joy into her room throughout the day.
It is a small project, but it means a lot — a way to share with Grandma the people, memories, and everyday moments that make our family special.
Project updates
What's new
What's changed on the website and on Grandma's slideshow.
A fresh look for the website
The refreshed website makes the photo-sharing instructions and the story behind McPics easier to find.
- Grandma's photo and the family story have more room, with a layout that works on phones and computers.
- The send-photo buttons, copy-address option, and full-size photo reminder make getting started easier.
- For anyone curious about the project, Behind the slideshow explains how it works and what took some figuring out.
Quiet hours for the screen
The screen can now turn off on a schedule and return to the slideshow afterward. The computer stays on to collect new photos, without keeping the room bright overnight.
More variety in the slideshow
Changes to the photo rotation help keep a handful of pictures from repeating too often.
- Photos that haven't appeared recently get more priority, while new arrivals still get a short turn in the spotlight. The order isn't a strict loop.
- Contributor names display more consistently, regardless of capitalization in the original email.
- When more than one person sends the same picture, duplicate handling does a better job of keeping contributor credit without repeating the photo.
Keeping contributor counts accurate
Two fixes help keep track of everyone's photos:
- Incomplete sender information could make one person appear as two contributors. Those records are now handled more consistently.
- Similar pictures taken moments apart were sometimes mistaken for duplicates. Stricter matching helps keep those separate shots in the slideshow.
Replies when photos arrive
McPics can now send automatic replies when that option is enabled:
- A thank-you confirms an import, with photos sent close together grouped into one reply.
- If a photo is too small or an email has no photos attached, a notice explains how to try again.
- Low-resolution photos are kept out of the rotation. Sending the original gives McPics a better version to use.
- The McPics logo also gained a small heart above the i.
Smoother photos and captions
This round of changes focused on watching the slideshow:
- Photos fade into one another, captions wait for the photo to load, and the mouse pointer hides when idle.
- The layout scales for Full HD and 4K screens. If an image fails to load, the slideshow can skip it and move on.
- The Family Update board handles contributors with multiple email addresses more consistently, and cleanup helps retain higher-quality copies.
Easier support from a distance
New desktop shortcuts open the slideshow, settings, Family Update preview, and status checks. They make it quicker to check imports and the photo library, or reopen the slideshow without waiting through its normal startup delay.
More reliable photo importing
McPics now recognizes exact duplicate photos from the same sender and can preserve credit when different people send the same picture. If the email service reaches a limit, importing stops cleanly and can try again later.
A Family Update screen
The slideshow gained a Family Update screen showing recent photo activity.
- Photo selection began giving new and rarely seen pictures more priority.
- HEIC/HEIF photos from iPhones can be converted for the slideshow.
- Installation tasks were separated from everyday startup so the computer has less to do when it turns on.
Photo history and settings
McPics began recording which photos had appeared and how often, then using that history to choose the next picture. A local settings page made it possible to check and adjust the slideshow from the computer.
The first slideshow
The first version of McPics brought a local photo slideshow to Grandma's TV. It read pictures from the computer and displayed them fullscreen in a browser.
A database kept track of photos and senders, folders organized the imports, and basic logs and health checks made remote support possible.