Photo diary · for people keeping a private daily photo diary
Onestill is a private photo diary for people who want to keep one photo a day and nothing more. Each day you take a photo in the app or pick one taken today, and it becomes an instant-film print with a short caption in a handwriting font and the date stamped in the corner. Tap the print to flip it and write a few lines on the back. Over the month the days line up as a film strip and a calendar, empty days included, and everything stays on your phone without an account.
Open Your month and every day of the month sits in its own frame on a strip of film, numbered in a digital date font like an old camera's date imprint. Days you skipped stay as blank frames, so the strip shows the month you actually had. Switch to Calendar to see the same month as a grid of small photos and dashed empty boxes.
Shoot with the in-app camera or pick a picture you took today, add a caption of up to 80 characters, and it lands on a cream instant-film print with today's date stamped in the corner. Tap the print to flip it and write on the back, up to 1,200 characters. It saves as you type, and the card says Saved on this phone.
Today's photos lists only the pictures your phone captured today, newest first, so last week's shots never show up. The app will not save a photo dated to another day. You can replace today's frame until midnight, and the words on the back stay when you do. After that, a missed day stays a blank frame.
A camera roll fills up with screenshots, receipts and six near-identical shots of the same sunset, and finding one particular day in it later takes real digging. A written journal asks for the opposite: a blank page and twenty quiet minutes, which is exactly what a long day does not leave you. Onestill sits between the two. The entry for a day is one photo you chose, plus a caption short enough to write while the kettle boils.
Choosing is the point. Picking one frame out of a day is a small act of editing, and it is often enough to bring the rest of the day back when you see it later. If there is more to say, the back of the print is there. If there is not, the photo and the caption already count as a finished day.
Onestill only accepts a photo taken today. Today's photos is filtered by the time each picture was captured, so last week's beach shots never show up there, and the app will not save a photo dated to another day. You can replace today's frame as often as you like until midnight. After that the day is closed.
That means missed days stay missed. They appear as blank frames on the strip and dashed boxes on the calendar, which is a more honest record than a month quietly back-filled on Sunday night. The home screen shows a small Day counter for consecutive days, and when a run ends it simply starts again. There are no badges, points or warnings about breaking a streak.
Most days the whole thing takes less time than reading this paragraph. Nothing asks you to tag, rate or categorize the day.
Your month opens on the current month as a film strip or a calendar, with a count of frames kept underneath. The Memories screen adds a monthly recap: how many frames you kept this month and a best moment, which is simply the day you wrote the most about.
You can turn today's print, or the month as a grid of up to twelve photos, into an image card and save it to your photo library or send it through the share sheet. And on the home screen there is a small surprise: shake your phone and an earlier frame slides up from the bottom like a print developing, with a light buzz. Shake again for a different one. Today's frame is left out, and frames older than a week come up more often than this week's, so the shake leans toward things you have half forgotten.
There is no account, no feed and no server behind Onestill. When you keep a photo, a copy goes into the app's own storage on your phone, and captions and diary text are saved in the app on the same phone. Nothing is uploaded. A photo only leaves the app when you save or share an image card yourself.
Turn on Diary lock in Settings and the app asks for Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode every time you come back to it. The camera, your photo library, Face ID and notifications are each requested only when you use the feature that needs them. Delete all data in Settings permanently removes every photo, caption and diary entry in one step.
Onestill is not a social app or a photo editor. There are no followers, likes or comments, no filters or editing tools, no video, and no second photo for the same day. It does not ask for your location or put your days on a map. One photo a day, a few words, and a private place to keep them is the whole product.
No. Onestill only accepts a photo taken today, and you can replace it until midnight. Days you skip stay as blank frames on the strip and empty boxes on the calendar.
Yes. Today's photos lists only pictures captured today. If you gave the app access to selected photos only, a Manage button lets you add more of today's shots.
No. There is no account and no server. Photos, captions and diary text stay in the app's storage on your phone, and an image only leaves when you save or share a card yourself.
No. Onestill keeps its own copy of the photo when you keep a frame, so cleaning up your camera roll does not touch the diary.
Yes. Turn on Diary lock in Settings and Onestill asks for Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode whenever you return to the app.
Only if you want it to. You can turn on a daily reminder at 9 PM during setup or in Settings, and keeping today's frame clears the pending reminder.
Pick the channel you use.
