Screenshots vs. originals
Save Procare photos at full resolution. Not screenshots.
The photo the teacher took is sharp enough to frame. The screenshot on your phone is not. Here is how to get the original of every photo, all at once.
What you actually have on your phone
Most parents keep daycare photos by screenshotting the app. It works for sending to a group chat. It stops working the first time you order a print, make a photo book, or put one on a big screen. A screenshot is about a megapixel with the app’s buttons cropped in. The original the center uploaded is eight to twelve.
Two years of daycare is a thousand or more photos. Saving them one at a time, even at full quality, is a weekend nobody finishes. So the camera roll ends up with the handful you remembered, at the wrong quality, in no order.
Three ways to save, compared
| Method | Resolution | Speed | Filename | Videos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screenshot from the app | About 1 MP, interface cropped in | One at a time | IMG_4521 | Screen recording, no original audio |
| Save from the app (where offered) | Compressed preview | One at a time | Random | Often not available |
| Daycare Photo Download | Original file, full resolution | Whole feed in two minutes | By date | Original file |
Getting the originals
- Add Daycare Photo Download to Chrome from the Chrome Web Store and paste in the license key from your purchase email.
- Log in to Procare at schools.procareconnect.com like normal. The password goes to Procare’s own login page, never to us.
- Click the extension, pick your child, and download. One ZIP of every original photo and video, named by date, in your Downloads folder in about two minutes.
The files go straight from Procare to your computer. We never see your photos. Run it again next month and it only fetches what’s new, so your copy is never behind the daycare app.
What full resolution gets you
- Prints and photo books that look like the photo, not the phone.
- A folder that sorts itself by date: first day at the top, this week at the bottom.
- Originals in your own library, so they survive the day your Procare account closes.
Questions parents ask
- Why do my saved Procare photos look blurry?
- Because they're screenshots. A screenshot is a picture of your phone screen, roughly 1 megapixel with the app's interface cropped in. The original the teacher uploaded is usually 8 to 12 megapixels. Printing a screenshot at 5x7 shows the difference immediately.
- Does the app's save button give the original?
- When a save option is offered it saves the image the app displays, which is a compressed preview. It also saves one photo at a time, with no date in the filename.
- What about videos?
- Videos are the worst case for screen recording: you lose resolution and sound quality both. The download saves the original video file the center uploaded.
- How are the files named?
- By date, so a folder of two years of photos sorts itself in order. Photos taken the same day are numbered.
- Does it get everything or just recent photos?
- Everything your parent account can see, back to the first day. Run it again later and it fetches only the new ones.
- What does it cost?
- $19.99 a year, every child on your account, photos and videos. If a renewal goes through for a year you didn't use, email us and we refund it, no questions asked.