A Facebook Memories Alternative for the Days You Didn't Post
Facebook Memories is one of the nicest things on there. A morning notification, a photo from this day six years ago, and for a second you’re standing in that kitchen again. Plenty of people open Facebook for that and nothing else.
It can only hand back what you gave it, though. Memories are built from your old posts and photos, so the years it can show you are the years you were posting, and the days it finds are the ones worth announcing: the trip, the wedding, the new haircut. As people post less, the mornings get quieter. And when a memory does come, it arrives inside the feed, with everything else that lives there.
exactly 4 years ago
Friday, Jul 8, 2022
★
Drove out to the valley. Stood there a while.
Your memories come back
Write one line tonight and that’s your journaling for the day. Seven days on it turns up again, and after that it keeps turning up.
- a week later
- a month
- three months
- six months
- a year
- every year after
little memory
now
Exactly 1 year ago
Peaches at the stand. Bought far too many.
Have it come to you at an hour you pick, or leave notifications off and find them waiting the next time you open the app.
The same pleasure, from a supply you make
Little Memory is built around the looking-back, and it makes its own material. You write one sentence about today, about fifteen seconds, and it comes back to you: a week later, a month later, and on this date every year after.
Because you wrote it, the day that comes back doesn’t have to be one you’d have posted. Sam’s first day at the new job. Fixed the gate finally. Argued about the thermostat, then laughed about it. Nobody would put that on Facebook. It’s exactly the kind of day you’d like back.
Little Memory vs. Facebook Memories
| Little Memory | Facebook Memories | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the memories come from | One sentence you write each day | Your old posts and photos |
| Days you didn’t post | Still there, if you wrote a line | Not there |
| Who sees it | You | Whoever the original post was shared with |
| Where it arrives | A quiet app with nothing else in it | Inside the Facebook feed |
| A day’s entry | One sentence, photo if you like | Nothing to write, it collects |
| Resurfacing | A week, a month, a year, then every year | On this date, from past years |
| Platforms | iPhone | iPhone, Android, web |
Everything is private by default, with no account to connect and no feed. The basics are here too: search across every entry, streaks, most used words, emotion trends, your memories backed up to your own iCloud, and full export anytime. The little tour has the whole list.
Little Memory has been quietly running since 2011, and support comes straight from the developer.
This app helps me check in every day rather than only doing long journal entries when big things happen. That means the small stuff gets love too. This is literally the only app I allow notifications for; it’s consistent, but not annoying, it just prompts me and doesn’t nag.
Sweet Tarnation, App Store Review
Who should stay with Facebook Memories
If your good years are already in old posts, Facebook can reach back into them and Little Memory can’t. Nothing here imports your past. A journal you start tonight begins tonight, and the first little return arrives within the week.
They aren’t really the same kind of thing, and a lot of people keep both: Facebook for the archive that’s already there, and fifteen seconds a night here so that five years from now there’s something to look back on that nobody had to post.
(If what you liked was the daily photo from your camera roll, there’s a Google Photos Memories comparison as well, and a Timehop one for the app that gathers all of them up.)
