A digital photo frame will set your photos free. Most of us have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos just sitting on our phones and computers that we rarely get to revisit in a polished way. While we all intend to print them into photo albums or hang them on the wall, you can't fit every great picture you take onto the walls of your home. That is, unless it's a digital photo frame sitting on your shelf or hanging in your living room.
Digital photo frames are possibly my favorite gadget to enter my home. Every person I have over compliments it or mentions how they want to get one too (which is why they make great gifts!). Every time a friend has bought or been gifted one, I've heard raves about how happy it makes them to see so many photos they love so easily. It's especially great for families with young kids always growing, or grandparents who want to get all the pictures of the family in one place.
These frames are all easy to set up and display every picture you could want. My personal favorite is the Aura Aspen ($229) (9/10, WIRED Recommends), Aura's newest frame (originally the brand was famed for the Mason) that looks almost like a regular analog frame with its mat framing. Aura also makes our favorite budget pick, the Aura Carver ($149). Looking for more options? Nixplay makes a great frame with a touchscreen and included remote control, while Skylight's newest frame lets you change the physical frame to match any interior design changes.
Read all of our recommendations below. Looking for more photo and camera ideas? Check out our many other buying guides, like the Best Compact Cameras, the Best Mirrorless Cameras, the Best Photo Printing Services, and the Best Camera Gear for your Phone.
Updated May 2024: We've added the Aura Aspen as our new top pick, and the Azorpa Digital Photo Frame to Honorable Mentions. We've also reorganized this guide and added an FAQs section.
Best Overall
There's no beating Aura when it comes to digital frames. All of them have high-quality displays and unlimited photo storage. Plus, they're dead simple to set up, use, and share with family and friends. Everything is controlled with the app, so there's no laggy touchscreen to futz with—you can scroll through or heart photos using the touchbar on top. Aura has long lineup of similar-looking models, and my favorite is the newest one: the Aura Aspen (9/10, WIRED Recommends). The 12-inch frame is a great size to easily see photos from a distance, but not so big that it looks comical in a smaller room. It can be placed in either portrait or landscape mode, and easily rotated at any time. This is a similar experience that you'll find on most of Aura's other frames, though not their cheapest frame (more on that one below).
The best part about the Aura Aspen and other Aura frames is that they don't look like shiny computer screens, nor are they haunted by the blue tinge you'll find on cheaper digital frames. Especially thanks to the mat style you'll find on the Aspen (and other models like the larger Walden), it can easily pass for a real photo frame—until the picture changes, of course. There's really no better experience you can find in the world of digital frames.
Screen ratio 4:3 Screen size 12 inches Positions Portrait and landscape mode Storage Unlimited, and free Trending Now
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Best Budget
The Aura Carver has been around for a while, and it's still a great frame. The 10-inch frame is one of the best cheap frames you can find, pairing Aura's fantastic experience (a great app! unlimited storage!) with a smaller, landscape-only option. While it does have a slimmer aspect ratio of 16:10, landscape photos still look good, and you can toggle on Photo Match in the settings to have the frame “match” to similar portrait orientation photos together to fill the screen. It'll often match by event, or match two photos of the same person together.
The Aura Carver has the Carver Mat ($179) version for a little higher price tag that matches the aesthetic of the Aura Aspen above, and the biggest option in the lineup, the Aura Walden. Unlike both of these, the Carver Mat is still landscape only, but the Mat version is really beautiful if you want an aesthetic upgrade without shelling out over $200 (and still getting the perks of a much more expensive frame).
Screen ratio 16:10 Screen size 10.1 inches Positions Landscape mode only, but can pair portrait photos together side by side Storage Unlimited, and free
A Touchscreen Option
Nixplay is comparable to Aura, though its app focuses on building playlists of photos rather than a singular library. Nixplay has a couple different frames, but the main and best one is the 10-inch HD Touch Screen. The touch screen works well, though I did find it a little more blue than the matte screen experience of the Aura. But if you'd rather be able to reach out and swipe on the screen itself, or manually adjust the crop with your fingertips, Nixplay is a good choice. It does have a slightly slimmer screen ratio compared to Aura, with a 16:10 ratio.
Nixplay frames have additional perks, like a small clock you can add to the display, though that does make it look less like a real photo frame and more like a smart display. Nixplay also works with some smart TVs to display your photos on the TV like a photo frame, and has Nixplay events to allow friends and family to upload photos to a Nixplay album (and even have that album play on a screen, updating in real time with new photos). Nixplay does have some features you have to subscribe to either Niteplay Lite ($20 a year) or Nixplay Plus ($30 per year) for. The Plus plan gets you unlimited storage and albums and up to two-minute videos, while Lite gives you 100 GB cloud storage and up to one-minute videos.
Screen ratio 16:10 Screen size 10.1 inches Positions Portrait and landscape mode Storage 500 MB for free, 100 GB for $20 a year, or unlimited storage for $30 a year For Flexible Frame Styles
If you can't decide what frame style to choose, or are worried you might change your home's color scheme, get the Skylight Frame 2. The Skylight Frame 2 uses Skylight's Snap Frames ($15 to $30) to easily change out the frame style surrounding your photo. The Snap Frames range from your classic black to fun colors like blue and green, two shades of wood, a wider frame that covers the screen bezel for a borderless design, and even two shadowbox-style frames. They're well priced, too, making it affordable to purchase several and swap them out to match your home.
As with the original Skylight, you can email photos or use the app. The Skylight will fill the screen with the photo, but you can easily adjust the arrangement by touching the screen and zooming in or out. The screen quality still isn't quite as nice as the Aura, and doesn't naturally dim based on ambient lighting. But it still looks great, and you can set up schedules in the app for the screen to sleep. The Skylight 2 only comes in one 10-inch size, and has the slimmer 16:9 aspect ratio, so most photos will need some cropping. Skylight also has a free and paid tier, with the paid Plus tier ($39 per year) giving access to features like creating albums, cloud backups, and online access to your photos. It doesn't change the storage amount, which is set to 16 GB for this frame (twice the 8 GB the original Frame has).
Screen ratio 16:9 Screen size 10.1 inches Positions Portrait and landscape mode Storage 16 GB, and free
A Frame You Can Text
Loop's touchscreen display was among the best of the options I've tried, and photo quality is solid. You can text photos to the frame instead of having to do it in-app, which is nice if your family member is sending photos to your frame and you don't want them to see your entire slideshow. A few frame options offer the ability to email photos. Vertical photos can be shown side-by-side, auto-stretched, or letter-boxed. For the latter, the background is a blurred image of the photo. I was also impressed by the quality of the rose gold metal stand, which adds an extra element of style.
But there are some quirks that I think can be improved upon. I don't like that you have to do some of the signing-up on the frame and some on the app—and if you want to remove a frame, you have to do a factory reset on the device itself, and then remove it from the app, where your photos will remain. I think it should be app only. —Medea Giordiano
Screen ratio 16:9 Screen size 10.1 inches Positions Landscape mode Storage 16 GB, and free A Photo Frame and Smart Assistant
If you already have a smart display, you can set it to cycle through your photo albums when it's idle. The best one for this by far is the Google Nest Max. It uses Google Photos to pull pictures, so if you're already a Google Photos user, it's an easy transition. But even if you aren't, adding your pictures to Google Photos is much, much easier than using Amazon's uploading tool in the Echo app. Google's slideshow experience is much better, looking almost on par with a true digital photo frame.
Google's smart displays are smart enough to put vertical photos side by side, and do a good job of pairing similar events together when doing so. Horizontal photos will fill the entire frame. You can't rotate this one to be at different angles like you could other frames, but if you want a single device that can do everything—control your lights! check the doorbell! show you your family!—this is the one to get. The storage limits are for the entire Google Account, starting at 15GB, and you can upgrade on a monthly subscription. I currently pay $10 a month for 2 TB of storage, but you can go as high as 30 TB (for a much higher fee).
Screen ratio 16:10 Screen size 10.1 inches Positions Landscape mode only, but paira portrait photos together side by side Storage 15 GB for free for the Google Account, and can upgrade to higher levels
Honorable Mentions
Aeezo 9-inch frame $90: This frame will do the job, but the app—the Frameo app, rather than a dedicated Azeeo app, which we've seen on other cheap frames as well—isn't nearly as streamlined as pricier counterparts. They're better that other cheap options we've tested, but, like Cozyla, they cross the $100 threshold. If you can spend a little more, the $150 Aura Carver is a much better buy.
Aura Mason for $199: This was the big original favorite from Aura, with a solid frame and the ability to rotate between landscape and portrait mode. It's still a great frame, but Aura did say they're sunsetting the model, but it'll remain available until it's sold out.
Aura Walden for $299: This frame is essentially the same as the Aspen and Carver Mat but larger, reaching 15 inches across. It's great for wall hanging or for large great rooms, especially since it has a nice flat back. I love mine for my living room and kitchen combo, since the frame is large enough for me to enjoy the pictures from across both rooms.
Azorpa 10-Inch Digital Photo Frame for $110: This slim frame works well and has a nice affordable price point, and it can be rotated. It also has its own dedicated app, unlike several affordable models that all use the same Frameo app. But the ratio is slimmer than smartphone photos, so I found myself needing to constantly recrop pictures or have an extra border along two of the sides. If you don't mind a border and want a really cheap frame, this one's solid.
Cozyla frames: We tried a few from this brand. Photo quality was great and there were solid features like only showing photos that match the current orientation of the frame. I found the app to be frustrating, however, and it comes pre-loaded with unnecessary art images. You can hide them from your frame, but there was no obvious way to remove them from the app entirely. If you happen to find one at a super discount, grab it, but other than that, I'd wait for an update.
Familink 10-Inch Digital Photo Frame for $120: Familink's frame works with or without an internet connection, thanks to its 4G SIM card. Someone will need to set up an account on the website or app (iOS, Android) so that family members can send photos (or even chats) to the frame. There's no slideshow feature—the most recent addition shows automatically, and you can manually scroll through. But the screen still looks good.
myFirst Frame Doodle for $130: This frame is aimed at kids, with its cover you can draw on and an app feed that family members can use for photo sharing and chatting. But it's too expensive for the quality. It was slow and not as straightforward as Aura and no matter how many times I deleted photos from the library, they kept returning.
Pexar 2K Digital Picture Frame by Lexar for $130: This frame can rotate to be either portrait or landscape mode, and has a little stand that attaches via magnet for either position. It's a fine frame, but the screen isn't as nice as those for a similar price. The Pexar is made by Lexar but uses a third-party app, Frameo, which works fine but has a weirdly Instagram-like uploader that's limited to 10 photos.
Skylight 10-inch Frame for $170: This frame was a previous honorable mention, and it's still a solid frame. We like other frames better for the price, including the new Skylight Frame 2 (especially with its Snap Frame accessories). This one only has 8GB of storage, compared to most other frames having 16GB or more.
Vieunite's Textura Digital Canvas for $754 (USD shown in cart): Is beautiful for displaying professional art. It's bright and high-def enough that you don't lose the integrity of the original painting. It's extremely expensive, though, even if it cheaper than buying an actual van Gogh.
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