The family group chat has everything in it. The first day of school, the dog in the snow, the new kitchen, somebody's engagement. And then there is one person seeing none of it, because they are not on WhatsApp and have no intention of being.
Most advice about this starts by trying to fix the grandparent. Buy them a tablet, set up an account, sit with them at Christmas and show them how it works. Sometimes that lands. More often the tablet ends up in a drawer, and everyone feels slightly worse about it than they did before.
So here is the other way round. These are ways to keep somebody properly in the loop that ask nothing of them at all.
Why "just get them on WhatsApp" usually fails
It is worth being honest about why, because the reason decides what actually works instead.
- It is rarely about the technology. It is about not wanting to be the person who keeps asking how to do it. Nobody enjoys being a beginner at eighty, especially in front of their own children.
- Somebody has to keep it alive. Phones update, passwords expire, the wifi router gets replaced. Every one of those is a phone call to whoever set it up, and that person is usually two hours away.
- It moves too fast to follow. A busy family chat produces forty messages before lunch. If you open it once a week you are not catching up, you are scrolling past.
- Nothing is kept. Even when it works, a photo seen on a screen is gone. There is nothing to put on the sideboard, nothing to show a neighbour, nothing to pick up again in March.
The aim is not to get them online. It is to get the family in front of them.
Ways to keep them updated that need nothing from them
Everything in this section works with no wifi, no account and no password. Somebody at your end does the small amount of work, which is the right way round.
- A printed photo booklet, posted every month. The family's photos collected up, printed properly and put through the letterbox. It needs nothing plugged in, it survives being handed round, and it still exists in a year. This is the option that tends to get left out of the lists online, and for a grandparent who is not online it is usually the strongest one.
- Prints by post, little and often. Six photographs in an envelope every few weeks beats two hundred in a folder nobody opens. Most chemists and supermarkets will print and post for a few pounds.
- A photo calendar with the family in it. A grandchild for every month, the birthdays already written in. It goes on the kitchen wall and gets looked at every single day, which is more than most presents manage.
- A standing phone call, same day, same time. Sunday at six, every week, so it never needs arranging. Put the grandchildren on for two minutes each rather than one long call from one adult.
- Children's drawings and letters. Free, and the thing most likely to still be on the fridge at Easter. Post is an event when your week is quiet.
- A voice recording on a simple player. Messages from the family on a device with a single button. No setting up at their end, and hearing a voice carries something a photograph cannot.
Ways that need a little from them
These can work well, but only if the person is willing, and only if somebody nearby will sort it out when it stops working.
- Picture messages to an ordinary mobile. If they have any mobile at all, photos can be texted to it. No app, no account. Check what their tariff charges first, because picture messages are not always included.
- A big-button photo phone. Faces instead of numbers. It does not get them photos, but it removes the excuse that ringing is a faff.
- A digital photo frame, honestly assessed. This is the standard recommendation and it is genuinely lovely when the conditions hold: reliable wifi, and somebody in the family who will keep feeding it for years rather than months. Without both, it goes dark on a shelf and quietly becomes a reminder that everyone gave up.
See it for yourself
What actually arrives through the door
A real printed edition, the same booklet we post to families every month.
Read a sample
If somebody near them is already online
A neighbour, a carer, a daughter two streets away, the warden at a retirement scheme. One person close by with a phone changes what is possible, because photos can go to them and be shown or printed locally.
It is worth asking rather than assuming. People are usually glad to help with something this small, and it takes the pressure off the family member who lives furthest away.
What to do about the group chat itself
Keep it. It is where the photos already are, and that is a genuine advantage: nobody has to be persuaded to use something new.
The job is not to replace the chat, it is to get what is in it out into the real world on a regular basis. Pick one method from the lists above, give it to one person in the family, and make it a routine rather than a good intention. The method matters far less than whether it happens every month without anyone having to remember.
The one we make
We should say plainly that we sell something that does this, so treat everything above as the alternatives we do not profit from.
Taletrove is a printed family photo booklet, posted once a month. The family shares photos in a WhatsApp group, which is the app you are all using anyway, and each month those become a proper printed booklet that arrives at your grandparent's door. There is no app for them, no wifi, no account and no password. They open the post and see what everyone has been up to.
It fits this particular problem for an obvious reason. The family carries on doing what it already does, and the person who is not online is the only one who does not have to change anything.
You can read a real sample or start one in a few minutes, with the first month half price.
Other guides that might fit better
If the difficulty is the distance, the person or the occasion rather than the technology:
- Gifts for grandparents who live far away and aren't online
- Gift ideas for someone in a care home
- Meaningful gifts for someone living with dementia
- What do you buy grandparents who have everything?
The short version
Stop trying to move them onto the app. Pick one thing that arrives physically, whether that is prints in an envelope, a calendar, a letter from the grandchildren or a printed photo booklet, and make it happen on a schedule rather than when somebody remembers. Keep the group chat exactly as it is. The aim was never to get them online, it was to get the family in front of them.