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Ephemeral Trace is a private iPhone camera for photos and videos that only need to exist for a while. Choose a timer before you capture or import. Each item counts down in the app’s private storage on your iPhone, and the app deletes it when time runs out.

Choose 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 1 hour, or 24 hours. Pro adds custom timers up to one year, and Keep Forever. Every item shows a live countdown and a ring that empties as time runs down. When expiry completes, Ephemeral Trace removes the media file, its thumbnail, and its record. There is no trash, Recently Deleted album, or undo in the app.

Yes. Extend an item’s timer or change its expiry at any time, use Keep Forever with Pro, share it, or save a copy to Photos. A copy saved outside Ephemeral Trace is no longer governed by the app’s timer.

Warnings are local notifications that say how many items fade soon, with a button to extend them by an hour. They never contain the photo, its note, or its text. Items on a 30-second timer never send a warning. Turn warnings on or off in Settings → Notifications.

Ephemeral Trace 1.3 requires an iPhone with iOS 26.0 or later.

In the Media tab, choose Import from Photos in the ⋯ menu to pick specific items in Apple’s system picker, or send up to ten photos and videos from another app with the Share sheet. You choose the timer and folder as they come in. Ephemeral Trace cannot browse your photo library; it receives only the items you pick. If you pick an item stored only in iCloud, Apple may download that item first.

Ephemeral Trace keeps the items that arrived and tells you how many did not, and why. Try again with fewer items, free up storage, or download an iCloud-only item in Photos first. Very large items can be over the import limits.

Open a photo’s text to select and copy it. When the photo holds a QR code for Wi-Fi, a contact, or an event, a button joins the network, saves the contact, or adds the event to Calendar, and a line that is a web link gets an Open button. Joining hands the network’s name and password to iOS, which asks you before it joins; Ephemeral Trace opens no connection itself. Reading and copying text is free.

Point the camera at a QR code in photo mode, and a button appears above the zoom controls: it joins the Wi-Fi, saves the contact, adds the event, or opens the link. Any other code offers Copy Code. Open a photo with a QR code or barcode, and the same button appears; with several codes it reads Codes and lists each one. Touch and hold the button to read the whole code first. Codes are read on your iPhone, only web links open, and a link opens in Safari only when you tap it. Turn camera scanning off in Settings → Camera → Scan QR Codes.

Show Code puts a code from a photo on screen, straightened, on white, and at full brightness, so a gate or till scanner can read your ticket, boarding pass, or loyalty card. Choose it from the code button on the photo; when the button offers something else, touch and hold it. The screen stays awake while the code is shown, and its brightness goes back when you close it.

Type a day, month, or year in the search field: “today”, “yesterday”, “Friday”, “September”, “2025”, or “12 September”. Search finds the items that came into the app then, whether you took them or imported them; a date printed in a photo doesn’t count. A weekday means the most recent one in the last seven days. Search also finds numbers however they were written, so 12.50 finds 12,50, and it highlights every word you search.

Open the photo’s text. When a ticket or coupon shows its end time, the Text sheet offers that moment as the photo’s expiry, for example “Expire Today at 4:45 PM”. Nothing changes until you tap it. With Pro and Text in Photos on, the offer also appears in the photo’s menus, and it can appear right after you take the photo.

No. The app has no accounts, analytics, tracking, advertising identifiers, crash reporting, third-party SDKs, or app-operated cloud storage, and its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected. Read the Privacy Policy for the full boundary, including the Apple services you choose to use.

In the app’s private storage on your iPhone, protected by iOS Data Protection. Media is excluded from iCloud and iTunes backups, so a capture doesn’t outlive its timer inside a backup. The app has no server of its own to send anything to.

It protects against a photo still being there later. It can’t stop a screenshot, a screen recording, another camera pointed at your screen, or someone using your unlocked phone before the timer ends, and it is not designed to defend a compromised or jailbroken device.

Camera takes photos and videos, and reads QR codes on your iPhone while Scan QR Codes is on. Microphone records sound with videos. Notifications deliver expiry warnings, if you allow them. Face ID or Touch ID unlocks the gallery and locked folders when you turn that on with Pro. Photo Library (Add Only) saves copies to Photos; imports go through Apple’s system picker, which hands over only the items you choose. Change any of them in iOS Settings.

With Pro, Text in Photos reads the words in your photos on your iPhone, so search can find them. Nothing is uploaded; the text is stored with the photo and deleted with it. While it is on, the Has a Code filter shows the photos that hold a code. Turning Text in Photos off deletes all stored text.

Redact finds the numbers, codes, faces, and lines of text in a photo. Card and account numbers, phone numbers, codes, and faces start covered; tap any line to cover or reveal it. Covers are solid black, never a blur. Share the redacted copy, save it beside the original, or replace the original. Redact works on what it detects; you cannot draw your own region.

With Pro, any folder can require Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode. Its photos never appear in All Media, library-wide search, or statistics; you see them only inside the folder, once it unlocks. You choose when it locks again: when you leave the folder, close the gallery, or leave the app. iOS handles the biometric match; Ephemeral Trace never receives your biometric data.

With Pro, a folder rule files new photos by their text: photos whose text contains “Boarding” can go to Travel, for example. Rules need Text in Photos and run on your iPhone as a new photo’s text is read. Move Matching Photos applies a rule to photos already in the library. Turn on Match numbers in any format, and a rule for 2025 also matches 20,25 or 20.25.

Free includes unlimited photo and video capture, the four standard timers, import from the system picker and the Share sheet, expiry warnings, notes, search by text or date, filters, copying the text in a photo, QR codes on the camera and in photos, Show Code, the ticket expiry offer, statistics, up to two folders in any colour, and export to Photos.

Pro is a one-time purchase that adds Keep Forever, custom timers up to one year, unlimited folders, a Face ID or Touch ID gallery lock with individually locked folders, Text in Photos with the Has a Code filter, folder rules, Redact, Straighten, the expiry prompt after capture, and a custom accent colour. There is no subscription and there are no ads.

Open Ephemeral Trace, go to Settings → About, and tap Restore Purchases while signed in with the Apple Account you bought Pro with. Pro is a one-time purchase, so restoring never charges you again.