Storyo support

Need help with Storyo? You're in the right place. For anything not covered below, write to support@highlinelabs.co. We typically reply within 2 business days.

When you email, please include:

• The version of the app (Settings → About → Version)
• The device you're using (iPhone or iPad model)
• A description of what happened and what you expected to happen

Frequently asked questions

Getting started

How do I add a child? The app walks you through it the first time you open it: tap the photo button to take a new photo or pick one from your library, enter a first name, and tap Save and continue. You can add more children later from the + button in the child selector on the main screen.

What kind of photo works best? Four things make a big difference:

• One child in the frame. Group photos confuse the drawing — the app can't tell which child is yours.
• Front-on, looking at the camera. Profiles and over-the-shoulder shots give the illustrator less to work with.
• Well lit, ideally daylight. Dark or heavily shadowed photos wash out hair and eye colour.
• No sunglasses, no hats pulled low, no heavy filters.

If the photo you pick has no clear face or more than one, the app will say so and let you pick again — it's a suggestion, not a rule, so you can carry on if you know better.

Can I add more than one photo? Yes, and it helps. Beyond the main photo you can add up to three more photos of the same child. A different angle or a different day gives the illustrator more to go on, which matters most for babies and toddlers — the hardest faces to draw consistently.

What is "Meet {name}"? During setup, once you've added a photo, Storyo draws your child once in the house style and shows you the result. That drawing is your child's character — it's used as a reference on every story page afterwards, so they look like the same kid from book to book.

If the first attempt isn't right, tap Try another for one redraw. You get one redraw per child, and only before you've personalized their first story — after that the character is locked in so your existing books stay consistent.

Can I add multiple children? Yes. Tap + in the main screen's child selector. Each child gets their own character and their own personalized stories, and the app remembers which stories have been personalized for whom.

Reading

How does personalizing a story work? Open a book and Storyo draws your child into the illustrations, a page at a time. The first page usually appears within a few seconds; the rest fill in while you read. You'll see each page arrive.

Why isn't my child on every page? By design. We personalize the pages where "your child as the hero" reads strongest, and leave the rest as the original illustration. It keeps the quality high and the subscription affordable.

A page failed to draw. What do I do? Tap Try again on that page. Most failures are a dropped connection or a busy server, and a retry fixes them. A retry doesn't cost you anything — the story is already counted against your monthly quota, so re-drawing a page inside it is free.

The picture doesn't quite look like my child. AI illustration is imperfect, and small children are the hardest case. Two things help most: pick a brighter, front-on photo, and add a couple of extra photos (see above). Changing the main photo clears that child's drawings so the next story starts fresh.

A picture is wrong, strange, or upsetting. How do I report it? Tap Report this picture on the page. It sends us the book, the page, and — if you want to add one — a short note, so we can look at exactly what you saw. You can also email support@highlinelabs.co with the book name and page number. We read every report.

Can I read offline? Yes, once a story has been personalized. The pages are saved on your device, so a book you've already opened reads on a plane, in the car, or anywhere with no signal. Personalizing a new story needs a connection, because the illustrations are drawn on our servers.

What languages does Storyo support? English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Albanian, Korean and Japanese. Switch languages any time from the globe button on the main screen — including in the middle of a book. The illustrations are the same; the words change.

Do my stories appear on my other devices? If you're signed in to iCloud on both, yes — your children and their personalized stories sync through your own private iCloud account. We can't see that copy; it's yours.

Subscription

What does the subscription include? Access to the whole catalog, three personalized books a month, and a new story added to the catalog each month at no extra cost.

Does re-reading a book use up my quota? No. Once a book has been personalized for a child, re-reading it is free and unlimited, forever — it doesn't touch your monthly count and it doesn't need a connection. Only personalizing a new book for a child uses a slot.

Is there a free trial? No. Before you subscribe you can add your child, see their character drawing, and browse the whole catalog for free. Personalizing a story needs a subscription.

When does my monthly allowance reset? When your subscription renews. If you're on the annual plan, the allowance is still three books per monthly period.

How do I cancel my subscription? Open Settings on your device → tap your name → Subscriptions → Storyo → Cancel subscription. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period, and you keep access until then.

You can also reach this from inside the app: Settings → Manage subscription.

Can I get a refund? Refunds are handled by Apple. Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in with your Apple ID, find the Storyo charge, and request a refund. We don't have visibility into Apple's decisions on individual refunds.

How do I restore my subscription on a new device? Sign in with Apple in the app — the same Apple ID you used originally. Your subscription and your stories come with you. If something still looks wrong, open Settings → Subscribe → Restore purchases, or write to support@highlinelabs.co with your Apple receipt and we'll sort it out.

Privacy and account

What does the app do with my child's photo? When you personalize a story, the photo is sent over an encrypted connection to our backend, which passes it to Google's image-generation service to draw the illustration. We don't keep the photo — it's held only for the length of that request and never written to our storage. We don't use it to train AI models, we don't build a faceprint or any other face measurement from it, and we never share it with advertisers.

We do keep the illustrations that come back, and your child's character drawing, stored privately against your account. That's what lets a story you've already personalized reopen instantly, for free, and offline.

Your child's first name never leaves your device at all. The stories are assembled on your iPhone or iPad, so the name lives only there and in your own iCloud.

See our privacy policy for the full picture.

How do I delete my account? Open Settings in the app → Delete account → hold to confirm. That permanently removes everything on our servers — your stories, your character drawings, your account record — plus everything on this device.

Important: deleting your account does not cancel your App Store subscription. Cancel that separately at Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions on your device.

Can I delete just one child? Yes. Long-press the child's photo in the child selector and choose Delete, then hold to confirm. That removes the child, their photos and their stories from this device and from your iCloud.

Copies of that child's generated illustrations stay on our servers until you delete your whole account. If you'd like them removed sooner, write to support@highlinelabs.co and we'll delete them for you.

Does Storyo show my child ads? No. There is no advertising in Storyo, no ad network, no tracking across apps, and no advertising identifier is collected.

Troubleshooting

A book won't open, or the loading is stuck. Check your connection first — new illustrations are drawn on our servers and downloaded to your device. If the app says it's taking longer than usual, you can cancel and try again. If a single page failed, tap Try again on that page.

I subscribed but the app still says "Subscribe". Force-quit and relaunch the app. If that doesn't fix it, tap Subscribe and choose Restore purchases at the bottom of the screen — Apple will resend your subscription state to the app.

I've hit my monthly limit but I want one more story. Open the story you want and choose One more story at the bottom of the detail sheet. It's a one-off purchase that adds a single extra personalization to your account — no change to your subscription, and it sits behind the adult hold-to-confirm gate. Otherwise, every book you've already personalized stays free to re-read, and new personalizations resume when your subscription renews.

My subscription is active but books are still locked. Check at Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions that it hasn't expired or paused because of a billing issue. If it shows a payment problem, update your payment method with Apple and reopen the app.

Still need help?

Write to support@highlinelabs.co and we'll do our best to help.