# Ephemeral Trace

> Photos and videos that delete themselves. Ephemeral Trace is a private iPhone camera: choose a timer before you capture or import, and each item counts down in the app's private on-device storage until it is removed.

Ephemeral Trace has no account system, analytics, tracking, advertising identifiers, crash-reporting service, third-party SDKs, or app-operated cloud storage. Its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected. Media is protected by iOS Data Protection and excluded from iCloud and iTunes backups. When expiry completes, the app removes the media file, thumbnail, and stored record. There is no trash, Recently Deleted album, or undo path inside Ephemeral Trace.

The app is published on the Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ephemeral-trace/id6760367407

Last updated: 2026-10-12 · version 1.4.0

## Who it's for

People with an iPhone who take photos they need only for a while, and would rather set a timer once than remember to clean up later. Those photos stay out of the camera roll and out of backups, and are deleted when their timer runs out. They want a camera with no account, no analytics, and no tracking. It needs iOS 26.0 or later; there is no iPad version and no Android app.

## How it differs

- **From a photo vault:** a vault keeps photos hidden for as long as you want them. Ephemeral Trace lets them go: every photo and video has a timer, and the app deletes it when time runs out. For keeping something private indefinitely, a vault is the better choice. Pro's Keep Forever and locked folders cover the few things a user decides to keep.
- **From Photos' Recently Deleted:** in Apple's Photos app, a deleted photo moves to Recently Deleted first. Ephemeral Trace has no trash, Recently Deleted album, or undo: when expiry completes, the file and its encryption key are removed together, and nothing has to be deleted by hand.
- **From Snapchat-style disappearing messages:** nothing is sent. Ephemeral Trace is your own camera, not a messaging app: there are no recipients, no accounts, and no servers. A disappearing message limits what someone else sees; Ephemeral Trace limits how long your own photos stay on your iPhone.

## Use cases

- **A parking spot:** the level and bay number, for the day.
- **A whiteboard:** the notes after a meeting, until they are typed up.
- **A guest Wi-Fi card:** join the network from the card's QR code, then let the photo expire.
- **A receipt:** for 24 hours until an expense is filed, or with a custom timer (Pro) until a return window closes.
- **A ticket or boarding pass:** the app offers the ticket's printed end time, or the end of the day after the last flight, as the photo's expiry, applied only with a tap; Show Code puts the barcode on screen at the gate.
- **A document sent once:** photographed, sent, and gone; Redact (Pro) covers card and account numbers before it is shared.

## Website languages

This site is in the app's thirteen languages. Each has a home page, /support and /privacy under its prefix; the English pages are the reference, and the translated privacy policies say the English version applies.

- English: https://ephemeraltrace.com/
- Deutsch: https://ephemeraltrace.com/de/
- Español: https://ephemeraltrace.com/es/
- Français: https://ephemeraltrace.com/fr/
- 日本語: https://ephemeraltrace.com/ja/
- Português (Brasil): https://ephemeraltrace.com/pt-br/
- Português (Portugal): https://ephemeraltrace.com/pt-pt/
- Українська: https://ephemeraltrace.com/uk/
- 한국어: https://ephemeraltrace.com/ko/
- 繁體中文: https://ephemeraltrace.com/zh-hant/
- Italiano: https://ephemeraltrace.com/it/
- Nederlands: https://ephemeraltrace.com/nl/
- Svenska: https://ephemeraltrace.com/sv/

## Key facts

- **Platform:** iPhone, iOS 26.0 or later, built with native SwiftUI
- **Current version:** 1.4.0
- **Pricing:** Free, with an optional one-time Pro purchase; no subscription and no ads
- **Storage:** App media stays in private on-device storage and is excluded from device backups
- **Photo Library boundary:** Add Only permission is used to save copies to Photos. The app cannot browse the photo library. Imports use Apple's system picker, which hands over only the items the user selects, or the Share sheet. If a selected item is stored only in iCloud, Apple may download that item first.
- **Languages:** English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Ukrainian, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish
- **Publisher:** Oleksandr Herasymchuk Unipessoal LDA
- **Contact:** contact@ephemeraltrace.com

## Version 1.4 features

Free:

- **Timers:** 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 1 hour, or 24 hours. Every item shows a live countdown and a decay ring coloured by its lifespan.
- **Widgets (new in 1.4):** the Next to Expire widget, small and medium on the Home Screen, and circular, rectangular, and inline on the Lock Screen. It shows the next capture to expire as its decay ring with a live countdown, and how many items expire within 1 hour, 24 hours, and 7 days. Counts and times only: never an image, a name, a folder, a note, or recognised text. Items in locked folders are counted, never identified. Tapping a widget opens the gallery; the medium widget has a camera button. The widgets read a small file of expiry times the app keeps in its App Group container on the iPhone; nothing leaves the device.
- **Open Camera control (new in 1.4):** a control for Control Center, the Lock Screen's bottom controls, or the Action button that opens the app at the camera viewfinder.
- **Import:** pick selected photos and videos with Apple's system picker, or send up to ten items from another app with the Share sheet.
- **QR codes on the camera:** in photo mode, a QR code in view gets a button that joins the Wi-Fi, saves the contact, adds the event, or opens the link; any other code offers Copy Code. New in 1.4: the camera draws a yellow bracket around the code the button refers to (Settings → Camera → Controls → QR Code Bracket). Codes are read on the iPhone. Settings → Camera → Scan QR Codes turns scanning off.
- **Code links (new in 1.4):** a QR code that is a phone, email, SMS, or map link offers Call, Email, Message, Open in Maps, or Open in Google Maps, on the camera's button and on photos. Phone asks before dialling; Mail and Messages open drafts. Nothing opens until tapped.
- **Codes in photos:** a photo holding a QR code or barcode gets the same button. Web links (http and https) open in Safari, and only when tapped.
- **Show Code:** puts a photo's code on screen, straightened, on white, and at full brightness, for a gate or till scanner. The code is cropped from the photo, never redrawn. New in 1.4: long codes, such as a boarding pass's PDF417 or a ticket's barcode, open sideways along the screen's height, and a Rotate button turns any code.
- **Boarding passes (new in 1.4):** a photo of a boarding pass (its IATA BCBP barcode) offers to expire the photo when the trip is over, at the end of the day after the last flight. The Text sheet can add the flight to Calendar as an all-day event, since a pass carries no departure time. The expiry is offered, never applied without a tap.
- **Offered expiry:** when a ticket or coupon shows its end time, the app offers that moment as the photo's expiry, applied only when the user taps it. New in 1.4: an event QR code offers its stated end time.
- **Search and filters:** notes, search over notes and folder names, and filters by media type, expiry, folder, and whether an item has a note. Search reads the date an item entered the app ("yesterday", "Friday", "September", "2025"); new in 1.4, it reads months written in characters (九月) in Chinese and Japanese. Numbers match whatever their separators (12.50 finds 12,50); every searched word is highlighted.
- **Expiry warnings:** local notifications that never contain the photo, its note, or its text. Items on a 30-second timer never notify.
- **Text and QR codes:** copy the text in a photo. Wi-Fi, contact, and calendar-event QR codes become buttons that join the network, save the contact, or add the event, and a line that is a web link gets an Open button. Joining Wi-Fi hands the network's name and password to iOS, which asks before joining; the app opens no connection.
- **Folders:** up to two, in any colour. The camera's folder pill chooses the folder the next capture lands in. Statistics, and export to Photos.
- **Settings:** camera control presets (Easy, Recommended, Real Life, or a custom mix), photo preview presets (down to Just the Photo, with switches for the folder chip and the code chip), Customize Timers and Show exact expiry time on the main Settings screen, and haptics that can be turned off for the whole app or per area and control.
- **Camera:** higher-resolution photos, hold the shutter to record, pause and resume a recording, and Camera Control support.

Pro (one-time purchase):

- Keep Forever, and custom timers up to one year
- Unlimited folders
- A Face ID or Touch ID gallery lock, and individually locked folders
- **Text in Photos:** on-device text recognition and search over it. Nothing is uploaded; the text is stored with the photo and deleted with it. While it is on, a Has a Code filter shows the photos that hold a code.
- **Folder rules:** a rule moves a new photo to its folder when the photo's text contains every word of the rule. Move Matching Photos files existing photos. Rules work while Text in Photos is on. A Match numbers in any format switch (off by default) lets a rule for 2025 also match 20,25 or 20.25.
- **Redact:** finds the numbers, codes, faces, and lines of text in a photo. Card and account numbers, phone numbers, codes, and faces start covered; any line can be covered or revealed with a tap. New in 1.4, Draw Box: draw a box over anything the automatic pass missed, such as a signature, a handwritten number, a logo, or a house number, and it is covered in the saved or shared copy. Covers are solid black, never a blur.
- **Straighten:** crops a receipt, ticket, or page to its edges and flattens it on the iPhone. New in 1.4: drag the four corners of the document outline to fix the edge; when no document is found, a starting rectangle can be adjusted.
- The expiry prompt after capture, and a custom accent colour (six presets or any hue on a wheel; timers and expiry keep their own colours)

Not in 1.4: a date filter (search reads dates instead), dates printed inside a photo as search dates, codes in videos, an iPad app, cloud sync, or accounts.

## How it works

1. **Choose a timer:** a standard duration, or a custom one with Pro.
2. **Capture or import:** with the camera, Apple's system picker, or the Share sheet.
3. **Use it while it matters:** add notes, search, share, or save a copy to Photos before expiry. A copy saved outside Ephemeral Trace is no longer governed by the app's timer.
4. **Let it go:** when expiry completes, the file and its encryption key are removed together.

## Threat model

Ephemeral Trace protects against a photo still being there later. It does not stop screenshots, screen recordings, another camera, or someone using the unlocked phone during the timer. It is not designed to defend a compromised or jailbroken device.

## Support answers

- **Restore Pro:** Settings → About → Restore Purchases, signed in with the Apple Account used for the purchase.
- **Expiry warnings:** Settings → Notifications.
- **Camera QR scanning:** Settings → Camera → Scan QR Codes.
- **QR code bracket:** Settings → Camera → Controls → QR Code Bracket.

## Pages

- [Home](https://ephemeraltrace.com/): product overview, how it works, version 1.4 features, screenshots, a tour of the settings, privacy, and pricing.
- [Privacy Policy](https://ephemeraltrace.com/privacy): data handling, storage, permissions, hand-offs to iOS, and Apple-service boundaries.
- [Support](https://ephemeraltrace.com/support): FAQ, troubleshooting, and contact information. Each answer has its own anchor, the same in every language, such as https://ephemeraltrace.com/support#is-it-free, #photo-vault, #recover-expired-photo and #ipad-android.
- [Guides](https://ephemeraltrace.com/guides): the three guides below, in English, German, Japanese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Korean (/de/guides, /ja/guides, /es/guides, /pt-br/guides, /ko/guides), written by the app's maker with their sources listed.
- [Does deleting a photo on iPhone really delete it?](https://ephemeraltrace.com/does-deleting-photos-really-delete-them): where a deleted photo can still be (Recently Deleted for 30 days, iCloud Photos, backups, shared albums, other people's phones) and how to remove each copy.
- [How to make photos delete automatically on iPhone](https://ephemeraltrace.com/how-to-auto-delete-photos-iphone): iOS has no timer for photos; what a Shortcuts automation, keeping temporary shots out of Photos, hiding, and a camera app with its own timer each do.
- [Auto-delete camera apps for iPhone, compared](https://ephemeraltrace.com/auto-delete-camera-apps): eight iPhone camera apps that delete photos on a timer, Ephemeral Trace among them, compared from their U.S. App Store listings as read on 2026-10-11.
- [App Store listing](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ephemeral-trace/id6760367407)