Meet mallow, the photocard maker for iPhone and iPad

If you have ever tried to make a photocard at home, you know the routine: a photo editor for the crop, another app for stickers, a guess at the size, and a print that comes out a few millimeters too small for the sleeve. We built mallow so that the whole thing happens in one place, and comes out the right size the first time.

mallow (on the App Store as mallow: Photocard Maker) is an app for iPhone and iPad that turns your own photos into photocards, lets you decorate them with die-cut stickers and prints them true to size. It is coming soon.

What is mallow?

mallow is a photocard maker. You start from a blank card at real size, add a photo, decorate it, and print it on the printer you already own. Every card is measured in millimeters, so what you see on screen is what lands on paper.

It is made for anyone who loves holding a photo in their hand: K-pop collectors who want a card of a favorite moment, friends making matching cards for a trip, fans preparing freebies for a cupsleeve event, or parents printing a tiny card of the dog. If you are new to the format, start with what a photocard is and why fans collect them.

How does it work? Three steps

Step	What you do	What mallow takes care of
1. Pick your photo	Choose a photo and frame it	Photocard (55 × 85 mm), instax mini (54 × 86 mm) or square (64 × 64 mm), 8 filters, crop and straighten ±20°, and your original is never touched
2. Decorate it	Drag, pinch and rotate stickers	Four finishes (matte, gloss, holo, glitter), snapping to the center and right angles, undo one tap away
3. Print it	Choose your printer and paper	Real-size layout, 2 mm of bleed, crop marks, 9 cards per A4 sheet or 8 per US Letter

The sizes are explained in detail on the photocard size page, with a scale comparison and pixel dimensions.

Stickers that catch the light

Every sticker in mallow is a real die-cut with a white border, and it comes in four finishes. Holo and glitter follow your phone’s gyroscope, so they shimmer when you tilt it, just like a holographic card in your hand. You can peel a sticker by its corner to see the back with the exact die-cut shape, or use the “Stick on card” button if you prefer buttons to gestures.

The free mallow Basics kit includes 18 stickers (hearts, stars, bows, clouds, a corner piece and more), and each kit has color presets that recolor only the main colors of every sticker. Browse them on the stickers page.

One honest note: holo and glitter are on-screen effects. On ordinary paper they print flat. For real shine, print on holographic vinyl and let the foil do the work.

Printing that fits the sleeve

The most common complaint about homemade photocards is size. mallow lays out your cards at real size and supports the printers people actually have:

• Home inkjet and laser printers through AirPrint, drawn 1:1 with no “fit to page”.
• Canon SELPHY, edge to edge on card-size paper.
• Zink printers such as HP Sprocket, and instax mini Link, through a 300 ppi image.
• Print shops and convenience-store printers in Japan, through a PDF with crop marks.

A 100 mm test ruler lets you correct a printer’s scale once (from 90 % to 110 %), so every sheet after that comes out right. Start with the guide to printing photocards at home.

Free, or mallow+?

mallow is free to download and free to use with no account. The free plan covers the essentials for good:

• Blank photocard, instax mini and square sizes
• The photo editor: filters, adjustments, crop
• True-to-size printing, PDF export and a 300 ppi image
• The free 18-sticker kit in all four finishes

mallow+ is an optional subscription with AI credits. It adds custom, recolorable sticker kits, cutting people out of a photo, restoring old photos with AI, AI photo editing and cloud backup of your cards. The price will be announced at launch. See the pricing page for the full comparison.

Private by design

You do not need an account to use mallow. Your photos and cards are stored only on your device, saved small, and we do not see them. Cloud backup happens only if you choose it with mallow+. We do not sell data and there are no third-party ads.

iPhone, iPad and 7 languages

mallow runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or later. On iPad it is not a stretched phone app: it has a fixed inspector next to the card, works in every orientation, supports Split View and Stage Manager, and has keyboard shortcuts.

It speaks seven languages from day one: English, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French and Brazilian Portuguese. It also supports VoiceOver, Dynamic Type and Reduce Motion, and nothing in it depends on color alone.

mallow is coming soon to iPhone and iPad. Until then, this blog and our photocard guides are open: sizes, paper, deco ideas and everything we learned while building the app. When the App Store page goes live, you will find the link right here.