A private camera for media that only needs to exist for a while. Choose a timer before you shoot or import. Each item counts down on your iPhone, then deletes itself when time runs out.
No account. No analytics. No tracking.
For photos that had one job. A parking spot. A whiteboard after the meeting. A guest Wi‑Fi card. A locker number. A document you’re sending once.
How it works
Every item carries the colour of its lifespan. Short timers burn hot, long ones run cool, and a ring around each one empties as its time runs down.
30 seconds, 5 minutes, 1 hour, or 24 hours. Pro adds custom timers up to a year, and Keep Forever.
Shoot in the app, pick items in Apple’s system picker, or send them from another app with the Share sheet.
Add a note, search, share it, or save a copy to Photos before time runs out.
When expiry completes, the file and its encryption key are removed together. There is no trash and no undo.
What’s new
Point the camera at a code, show a ticket to the scanner, and find things by the day you saved them.
New in 1.3 · QR codes
When the camera sees a QR code, a button joins the Wi‑Fi, saves the contact, adds the event, or opens the link. A ticket, boarding pass, or poster in a photo gets one too, and Show Code puts its code on screen, flat and at full brightness, for the scanner. Nothing opens until you tap.
Import
Pick specific photos and videos in Apple’s system picker, or send them from another app with the Share sheet. Ephemeral Trace cannot browse your photo library.
Offered expiry
When a ticket or coupon shows its end time, the app offers that moment as the photo’s expiry. One tap applies it, and nothing changes without the tap. With Pro, the offer can appear right after you take the photo.
New in 1.3 · Search
Search your notes and folder names, or by date: try “yesterday”, “Friday”, or “September”. Numbers match however they were written, and every word you search is highlighted. Filter by type, expiry, folder, or whether an item has a note. With Pro, on-device text recognition reads the words in your photos, so search finds them too, and a Has a Code filter shows the photos with a code. Nothing is uploaded.
Expiry warnings
Local notifications can warn you before items expire. They never contain the photo, its note, or its text.
Camera
Higher-resolution photos. Hold the shutter to record. Pause and resume a recording. Camera Control on iPhones that have it.
Privacy tools Pro
Lock individual folders behind Face ID or Touch ID. Redact the numbers, codes, faces, and lines of text it finds, with solid black, never a blur. Straighten crops a receipt, ticket, or page to its edges and flattens it.
Inside the app
From the next capture to the last second, the countdown stays in view.
Every item carries a ring and the time it has left, in the colour of its lifespan.
The app reads “Valid until 16:45” and offers it as the expiry. Nothing changes until you tap.
Four standard timers. Custom timers like these, and Keep Forever, come with Pro.
A Wi‑Fi QR code becomes a Join button, and every line of text is yours to copy.
Search finds the words inside your photos, read on your iPhone.
Card numbers, IBANs and phone numbers are covered in solid black, never blurred.
A locked folder shows no preview until Face ID or Touch ID opens it.
How much your timers have cleared, and how long you usually keep things.
Make it yours
Show as much camera as you want, keep only the timers you use, and let rules do the filing. Every switch says what it does.
Camera controls
Easy puts every control on screen. Real Life keeps the shutter, the timer and your library, and nothing else. Change any switch and the preset becomes your own mix.
Photo preview
Choose what sits in the bar when you open an item. Easy keeps Share, Save, notes and text in reach. Real Life keeps Share and Delete, and puts the rest in the menu. Just the Photo shows the photo, its expiry and Back. Drag the rows to make your own order. The folder chip shows and changes an item’s folder, and the code chip acts on a QR code or barcode in the photo.
Timers Pro
Customize Timers, now on the main Settings screen, turns off the presets you never pick and adds your own, like a week, 30 days or 180 days, up to a year. Drag them into order. The tick marks your default.
Folders
Name it, give it a colour, and choose it from the folder pill on the camera, so the next capture lands inside. Two folders are free. Pro makes them unlimited and adds Require Face ID, which hides what’s inside everywhere else until you unlock the folder.
Folder rules Pro
Write a few words and choose a folder. When a new photo’s text contains every one of them, the photo moves there by itself. Move Matching Photos files the ones you already have. Turn on Match numbers in any format, and a rule for 2025 also matches 20,25 or 20.25. Rules work while Text in Photos is on.
Text in Photos Pro
Search photos by text reads the words in your photos on the device, so search can find them. The text is deleted with each photo, and turning the switch off deletes all of it. Expiry prompt after capture offers a ticket’s end time right after you take the photo, and sets nothing until you tap.
Accent colour Pro
Pick one of six accents, or drag around the wheel for any hue. It tints the tabs, buttons and controls across the app. Timers and expiry keep their own colours, so a glance still tells you how long is left.
Haptics
A light tap on the controls you use most. Turn haptics off for the whole app, or only for the camera, the gallery and folders, the preview, or settings and sheets, down to the shutter and the zoom.
Private by design
A vault keeps your photos forever. This one lets them go.
It protects against one thing: the photo still being there later. It can’t stop a screenshot, a screen recording, another camera, or someone using your unlocked phone before the timer ends, and it isn’t built to defend a compromised or jailbroken phone.
Read the privacy policyPricing
$0
Everything temporary media needs.
One-time purchase
Pay once
No subscription. No ads. The App Store shows the price in your currency.
Capture without a trace
Keep your camera roll for what lasts, and give everything else a timer.
Download on the App StoreFree download · One-time Pro · iPhone with iOS 26 or later
Fading soon
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