A little hello, on their Lock Screen.
Magic Postcard is for ages 13 and over and sends short, silent videos to friends who have accepted your connection. Record a moment, choose a look and pick who receives it. Both people need the app.
For help, feedback or a bug report, email jacobbartlett95@gmail.com. Include your iPhone model, iOS version, app version and what happened. Please don’t include private videos or live invite codes in your first message.
Add a friend.
On first setup, choose an available unique username: 3–20 lowercase letters or numbers, without spaces or symbols. Your existing app identity and friends stay the same when you add a username. A profile photo is optional; choose Not now to skip it, or take a selfie later in Friends. The app does not look up your name in Contacts. Usernames cannot currently be changed in the app after they are claimed.
- Open Friends and share your invite link or let the other person scan your QR code.
- They open the link or scan the code in Magic Postcard.
- Accept the friend request. You can then send postcards to each other.
New shared invite links use games.jacobstechtavern.com/magic-postcard/i/…; older Firebase invite links are still accepted. Use Refresh my invite link to generate a new invitation when you want the old one to stop working.
Record. Review. Send.
Tap Record to begin, then tap again to stop. New recordings can be up to 10 seconds and have no audio. Previously saved longer clips are not shortened or deleted by this recording limit. Switch between the front and back cameras, choose a look, or use the camera’s zoom controls.
Review your video, tap Send and choose the recipients. My Lock Screen is your own copy. You can select all or deselect all; the app remembers your recipient choice. Both square and widescreen postcards can include a short optional message.
A successful send does not prove the other person watched the postcard, or that iOS has displayed every frame. Delivery depends on connectivity, the receiving phone’s setup and iOS background execution.
Keep it. Retry when you’re online.
Open Gallery beside Friends to browse your attempted, sent and received postcards. A send attempt is saved on this phone before the network send starts. If it fails or is interrupted, check its status in Gallery and tap Retry when you have a connection.
If the previous delivery could not be confirmed, the app warns that retrying may send it again. If the app says your friend needs to update or finish setup, ask them to update and open Magic Postcard before you retry.
Open a postcard in Gallery and tap the trash button. For a received cloud postcard, Remove from Gallery hides the entry for your app account without deleting the sender’s original. For a cloud postcard you sent, the confirmation is Delete postcard permanently: it removes your cloud original and stops new downloads. Already downloaded recipient copies and Lock Screen cards cannot be recalled. A removal that cannot finish stays pending until it can sync. For an older local-only postcard, Delete saved video removes this phone’s original and Retry; it may be the only copy.
Pull to refresh the two Gallery columns. In Gallery’s options menu, Clear storage removes regenerable previews, not originals or failed sends. Verified cloud originals use a 75 MiB cache target, separate from preview storage. Older sole copies, failed or uncertain sends, offline cleanup and videos in active use can exceed that target. Magic Postcard does not automatically save videos to Photos.
New cloud postcards remain available to the same app account until the sender deletes them, provided access is still allowed. Originals download when needed. Older local-only postcards and failed sends stay on this phone; they are not silently uploaded or discarded. Cloud Gallery is not a guarantee that a new guest identity can recover the old account’s postcards. The local library is excluded from device backup.
Not appearing on the Lock Screen?
- Both people should update Magic Postcard and open it at least once to finish phone registration.
- Check that the friend request was accepted and that the intended person was selected when sending.
- Check that Live Activities are enabled for Magic Postcard in iPhone Settings.
- Make sure the receiving phone has an internet connection. iOS controls when background work and Live Activities can run.
- If the problem continues, email the app versions on both phones and a short description. You don’t need to send us the private clip.
Postcards are silent. They are prepared for the Lock Screen’s small Live Activity area, so the Lock Screen copy may look less sharp or smooth than the original video in the app.
Remove, block or report.
Open a person’s options in Friends to remove the connection, block them or report a problem. A report also blocks the person after the server accepts it. If it references a received postcard, new downloads of that postcard are quarantined while it is reviewed. The operator can remove offending stored media or suspend an account; copies already saved elsewhere cannot be recalled. Removing a friend or blocking them stops new sends through that connection; it does not remove copies they already saved.
You can also email Jacob to report harassment, inappropriate content or another safety concern. Describe the problem without forwarding private material unless it is needed for the report. Do not use Magic Postcard to harass people or send unsolicited, threatening or unlawful content.
Your account and data.
Magic Postcard creates a guest app identity automatically. You don’t need an email address or password to use it. Uninstalling the app or clearing Gallery does not delete server-side account data.
For permanent deletion, open Friends → Privacy & about → Privacy & Account → Delete account and confirm. If deletion cannot finish, the app keeps local Gallery and offers Continue account deletion in the same screen. After server confirmation, it removes this account’s local Gallery/cached media and signs it out. Your old friends and profile are not transferred to a new guest identity. Reports are marked for 90-day expiry for safety, with asynchronous cleanup; recipient copies remain. Provider soft-delete recovery can retain deleted video objects for seven days before permanent erasure.
For additional data-removal questions or a deletion that needs support, email jacobbartlett95@gmail.com. We may need to confirm which account you control before removing information. No password is needed for the in-app deletion flow.
In Privacy & Account, you can also open the policy, support and community rules. Basic usage and performance events run automatically through Firebase; the app has no analytics switch. Usage events do not include your name, photos, videos, messages or friend identities. See the privacy policy for the information the service uses, analytics and retention, and the Community Rules & Terms for safe sharing.