We’re excited to announce some updates to the Find a Grave apps (for iOS and Android). This new layout simplifies navigation and helps better organize different views for you. We’ve improved accessibility features, language support and fixed bugs. We’ve also optimized our cemetery search design. The main features you’ll notice right away are:
Profile and Navigation Menu
You can view or Edit your profile by selecting your Profile in the upper right corner.
The new Navigation menu (at the bottom of the app) has separate sections for Memorials, Cemeteries, Contribute, and Transcribe.
From Memorials you can Search Memorials, find memorials you manage, go to Suggested Edits, Add a memorial, and see your Recently Viewed Memorials.
From Cemeteries you can Search Cemeteries, view your Virtual Cemeteries, Favorite Cemetery and Volunteer Cemeteries. It’s also easy to find Recently Viewed Cemeteries and Nearby Cemeteries.
From the Contribute menu, you have easy access for all the different ways to contribute to the site, including finding Photo Requests and your Upload queue.
Transcribe is where you’ll find any of your grave photos to transcribe or photos in the community queue to transcribe.
Guide me to the Grave
Along with these new layouts we’ve added a simple navigation tool to help you walk directly to a grave (the memorial needs to include GPS). Try it out the next time you’re in a cemetery! You’ll need location services enabled in your Settings on your phone or other device.
For iOS: Go to the memorial that has GPS, tap Map It. A map will open up and you can select Guide me to Grave to use a compass or Get Directions.
For Android: Go to the memorial and scroll down to the pin map symbol. Walk to the grave with the map or Open in Maps.
Locating history just got a whole lot easier! Our latest app update streamlines your experience—combining a polished layout and smarter navigation with turn-by-turn directions right to a specific headstone. We hope you enjoy all the exploration that awaits you in the cemetery! Update your Find a Grave app today to find and discover the stories that connect us all.
PLEASE give us the option to change the display to our preference. This new version, as well as the version it is replacing, are both user-UNfriendly when you’re trying to add/update memorials in real-time while in a cemetery on a bright sunny day. While the black background with pale grey and/or white lettering provides great contrast while simply viewing a memorial, trying to READ it (much less update it) under bright sunlight is nearly impossible.
Every time I visit a cemetery on a bright sunny day, I so wish the original version (white background with bold black lettering) was available to me as an option.
Hi Norman, thanks for this feedback. We’ll take this into consideration and see what we can do in the future. Here’s information about color theme in case it is helpful. If using iOS you can change the color theme. Go to your Profile, tap on Edit, scroll down to Color Theme and choose an option (Use Device Setting, Light, Dark). For Android, the app theme responds to the devices overall setting and we’re working on some improvements there also.
Thanks for your response – I have Android. I tried the light/dark options; those work well on cloudy, overcast days, but not at all in bright sunlight.
On android, go into your display settings and turn on “adaptive brightness.”
The brighter the ambient light, the brighter your screen. Start with a fully charged phone, because your battery will drain faster.
Trying to respond to this, but his post doesn’t have a “Reply” button…
Gene Phillips
June 18, 2026 at 8:32 am
On android, go into your display settings and turn on “adaptive brightness.”
The brighter the ambient light, the brighter your screen. Start with a fully charged phone, because your battery will drain faster.
I ALWAYS start with a fully charged phone, but when I go to cemteries that have literally THOUSANDS of graves, the battery runs down fast.
Why can’t Find-A-Grave simply switch the app back to a white background with black lettering? Wouldn’t have to be fooling with the device’s settings that would then affect all other apps on the device.
Google Play Store shows the app was last updated Jan 5, 2026. There are screenshots of the new layout, but when you download the app it’s still the old version.
It may be a few days before everyone gets the new update on Google Play, but it will be soon!
Having trouble today with app. When uploading a photo it does not add GPS location automatically.
Was working the other day?
Just upgraded app and will see what happens tomorrow.
iPhone 16 Pro
Thank you for reaching out about this problem. This has been fixed!
Please consider making allowing 2nd cousins to be included as close relatives. I have many second cousins who are near and dear to me. Thank you.
This is a wonderful upgrade. I hope it doesn’t proceed a subscription fee. I’ve been a FindAGrave contributor for many years. I’ve always appreciated that it was free.
i am only interested in graveyards and graves in new castle west county limerick and does this subscription cost JOHN ?
It is free to use Find a Grave. You can start your search through the homepage by adding the cemetery location.
Hi, with the upgrade the number indicating how many photos queued for uploading seems to cap at ’99+’. I try to get minimum of 200 shots per day. Can this be amended?
Hi John, thanks for your work photographing out in cemeteries. We simplified the count on the Upload queue to say 99+, but the queue should included all the queued photos you uploaded.
I am a photo volunteer for 2 years now. FG is a great tool and am trying my best to help others finding what they seek BUT today…. was a complete disaster. I saw the new redesign on my phone. It is absolutely terrible! Entering search data to find a profile where to update a photo – no longer shows the requested entries right away (it was green), no longer i see plot info, less entries fit in my screen. Someone asked to have option to select the old format – yes, that was working, but for some reason someone thought THIS is better? Seriously, FG?
Hi Steph, you should be able to search for a cemetery or memorial easily. Select Cemeteries from the navigation menu at the bottom. Then select Search Cemeteries. The map will come up with the green pins showing cemeteries with photo requests. To view the list of memorials for that cemetery, go to the cemetery page and tap # Memorials. Can you send in a screenshot of what you are seeing regarding memorials lists change in size? We are happy to help. You can reach out with this information to feedback@findagrave.com.
Ahh I thought it was just me as I was in the very large Mount Jerome Cemetery today but no amount of searching under cemeteries could I find it so I had to wait until I got home to upload photos. My other problem is below in another comment.
Not searching for a cemetery. I am IN the page of a cemetery i am working on, searching for “Bob Smith” to upload a requested photo. Those used to be marked with a green lettering indicating “requested”, making easy to see which out of 25 Bob Smiths is the one. Now not only there is no easy indicator but the dates are reduced to just year alone! If there are 5 Bob Smiths deceased in 1930, imagine how well this goes… Thank you for reading.
The repeated requests on the new app “We would like to use your current location….” with the only an option being to ‘approve’ should be changed to add a decline button. One shouldn’t have to continue to ‘Escape’ repeatedly to get the app to give up requesting current location. Current location is not required when using the website, why the app?
Thanks for your question. Since the app is intended to be used in the cemetery and on a phone that has GPS capabilities, you can do some things with the app that you can’t do with the website. Seeing your location in a cemetery, including GPS coordinates with a gravestone image or allowing you to drop a GPS pin for a memorial are great ways to make finding a grave easier for you and others, so enabling GPS location when using the app really enhances the experience. Of course, if you don’t want to allow GPS, you can choose not to. Sorry if the new app makes that choice harder to make. We’ll look into it.
That’s not how some of us work. I never do anything in the app at the cemetery, that would be a huge misuse of cemetery time. I do photos in the cem, following my printed lists or another logic. then get home, edit photos for light adjustment, positioning etc, to get the best possible picture for the requesters. It takes more than 1 step. Then uploading. Sometimes same general site photo applies to multiple grave/entries so that is extra time and i would do it sitting on my couch, not on site where best use of my time is TAKING photos.
I eventually found my “photo requests claimed” list but it wasn’t intuitive. Please put a link back under our profile. More importantly, can you please reinstate the plot information in the summary. I use this to find/group requests when traversing large cemeteries and it is frustrating to have to go into a record to find the information every time.
When you click “Add GPS” the first screen that shows up is the GPS for the cemetery, not where you’re actually standing. Many people click “Save” right there instead of using “use current location:. Would it be possible to first show the GPS of where you’re actually standing rather than the GPS of the cemetery?
It WOULD be possible to first show the GPS of where you are actually standing, IF you stand in one place long enough for the GPS constellation of satellites to triangulate and pinpoint your position. The GPS location for the cemetery is a fixed point – you are mobile. As you move around, your position relative to the GPS satellites varies. GPS tries to “resolve” your location, which is why you’ll see gradually smaller blue circles closing on your position as your phone communicates its position to a minimum of three GPS satellites (triangulation). Also, there are still GPS dead zones where pinpoint resolution is not possible. Lastly, if you know your physical position as shown on the map, tap the screen so the red pin shows where you are, then tap Save. Works for me!
I know all that but I think it’s confusing for a lot of people. They click “Add GPS”, see the red pointer of the cemetery GPS and click “Save” thinking the red pointer is where they’re standing. There was a topic on FB where someone found there were dozens and dozens of memorials with the same GPS location – the cemetery gate. I’m guessing that the contributor just clicked “Save” immediately without clicking “use current location”. If current location showed first it would prevent that. But there is a potential problem with that. In the old app when you clicked “use current location” it would immediately move the red pointer to the blue dot of your current location. In the new app it takes 20-30 seconds to do that. They must be using a different method of returning GPS coordinates.
I agree. The problem I have is that when you click “Use Current Location” it takes up to 15 seconds before it moves to your current location. Previous version of the app, it was pretty much instant.
Hi,
I am finding the new update very buggy on simple things that never had problems before. When I put in the death date along with an approximate year of birth it is showing it to be way off into 100-200 years old whereas never had that problem before so now I am not putting in the year of birth (shows on the page when you go to the first save/ submit page) . Which is unfortunate as it can be quite helpful to put in their ages and most dob are not shown on graves but ages are.
I am also finding that when I have a photo to match to similar names in the cemetery that the existing photo of the grave is in randomly showing up in multiple graves that have nothing to do with it and I have not even chosen the correct one so I am not sure if it corrects itself in the other photos it had randomly placed the photos in.
Is it just me? I am uploading lots of photos but have do this for months with not a bother until this new update. I can give Grave ID examples if anyone wants to check.
Thanks,
Pauline
Thanks for your comment. We’ll look into the issues you are experiencing.
I can’t imagine a more user-unfriendly update to a piece of software. I will no longer be recommending this app for use by local users of the cemeteries that i physically manage.
We are sorry to hear that you are having trouble with the app updates. If you have specific feedback that you think could help us improve the apps, we would love to have you share them with us at feedback@findagrave.com.
I like the idea of the compass for guiding to the grave location, for that is an exceedingly useful feature in the geocaching app that I use even in cemeteries when I feed it grave coordinates. But in FG, the feature is pretty flaky. Today, for example, the compass showed that I was 0.4 miles from a grave about 100 feet away and pointed in the exact opposite direction. When I resorted to the “old” method of using Apple Maps, I soon arrived at my destination without difficulty. Then when I switched back to the compass to try again, it still showed 0.4 miles even though I was standing right at the grave, and I never discovered a way to force it to refresh. This happened several times, and the compass always locked in on some location far outside the cemetery and 0.4 miles away.
Other than this, I appreciate the improvements, and they seem to be working well for me. As others have mentioned, using the app in bright sunlight is virtually impossible, but the visibility issues aren’t isolated to the FG app.
Hi James, we appreciate you sending in these details. This didn’t come up in our testing, but we’re looking into this!
I will send photos along with my feedback as I am not finding this new update useful at all. It is still not regarding the approximate ages correctly and will only do so when you put in the exact date of birth and exact date of death which is not always possible. I usually will put in the year of birth when the age is on the gravestone to help with searching. Can this be looked into and rectified asap as it leads to confusion and incorrect calculations on search filters. Thanks
The new format for a member’s Profile seems to have dropped number of photos added, volunteer photos taken and number of followers. Is that right? Still available on the website, though.
Hi Alan, thanks for reaching out. We’ll have these added back on the next release.