Photography is a bigger part of social life than ever, and there has been a parallel rise in the ways available to share your photos—at least digitally, that is. The convenience of printing off and displaying photos, however, has not caught up.

QuePics, a recently launched local start-up, aims to make printing photos easier.

The company is the brainchild of Sarah Duffy, a lawyer at Pemberton Law. Duffy was frustrated with the cumbersome process of printing photos she took during her day-to-day life using online services, which generally involved arduously sifting through all her photos, placing the ones she wanted in a cart, and checking out.

“It would take me four hours,” Duffy said, “and I was like, ‘There has to be a better way.'”

The way QuePics works, is users share photos they take with their phones to the QuePics mobile app, and at the end of the month, they receive four-by-six prints of all their photos in the mail. (The app defaults to four-by-six prints, but users can select other options as well.)

QuePics launched on the app store in July. For now, the app is available on Apple devices only, with the intent to launch a version for Android in the future.

Duffy had the idea for an app like QuePics in 2015, when she was tasked with creating photo boards for her grandfather’s funeral, and she found that the photos that had already been printed were generally less touching than the more off-the-cuff, spontaneous photos that existed only digitally, in family members’ photo libraries and social media accounts.

“They were the everyday moments,” Duffy said. “The good stuff, the stuff you want to remember.”

Duffy didn’t initially see herself creating an app—she figured one like it would probably already exist, so she started looking for one. But she didn’t find one.

“All I wanted to do was share a photo and have it magically appear in my mailbox,” Duffy said.

She initially called in tech-oriented connections to help build the app, but ended up finishing with the help of St. Paul-based Evolve Systems.

The app store launch was a soft launch, sort of a beta test for friends, family, and connections, and a social media campaign aimed at a wider audience has recently been started. Although QuePics obviously holds potential appeal for a wide base, one of the key target demographics they are aiming for out of the gate is mom bloggers.

“Obviously moms, particularly, print photos,” Duffy said.

She pointed out that Millennials are the most photographed generation, but the decline of photo albums means they don’t often look at those photos the way previous generations might have. They take more photos, but those photos aren’t being seen.

“The goal is to allow our users to print their story,” Duffy said.

For more information on QuePics, visit them on Facebook or Instagram, both @quepicsphoto. Sarah Duffy will present at 1 Million Cups Fargo on Wednesday, September 19. 1 Million Cups takes place each Wednesday at the Stage at Island Park from 9:15-10:15 a.m.