a photo diary for Android
The stories in the margins of your photos.
Your phone holds thousands of pictures – but who was there, what did you laugh about, how did the day feel? Randnotiz helps you hold on to exactly that. Calmly, and completely privately.
The test version is already available for free as an APK on GitHub.
The place was so packed that a family let us share their table. The grandma showed us how to slurp properly. Spiciest noodles of my life!
😋 Hungry🧳 Travel
washi tape comes free
your words – typed or dictated
- Open source Free code on GitHub – anyone can take a look.
- No tracking No analytics, no profiles – nobody is watching.
- No ads No banners, no subscription – simply free.
- All yours Only on your phone – or encrypted in your own cloud.
Why Randnotiz?
Photos capture how something looked. But not how it was. That is exactly what you forget first – the joke everyone laughed at, the smell of the street food stall, the feeling of that one evening.
Randnotiz is like an old photo album with handwritten notes in the margins: you pick a photo, write or speak a few lines about it – and years later the app puts that very moment back on your table.
I built Randnotiz just for myself at first. By now it is free software, and maybe you will like it too.
Write your own story – instead of just
swipingthrough everyone else’s.
Feeds show you other people’s lives. Randnotiz keeps yours – a photo, a few lines, no audience at all.
It’s that simple
Three steps. No sign-up, no setup, no fuss.
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1 Pick a photo
Randnotiz shows your gallery sorted by month. A little pencil tells you which photos you have already written about.
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2 Add a few lines
Write on lined paper what made the moment special – or simply dictate it. The app fills in date, place and weather by itself.
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3 Find it again later
“One year ago today …” – Randnotiz brings old entries back by itself. In the diary, as a reminder or as a widget.
What’s inside
No feature monster – but everything a good diary needs. And a few little touches that simply bring joy.
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Notes on photos
Tap a photo and start writing. Handwriting look on lined paper, everything saves itself.
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Just dictate
Don’t feel like typing? Mic on, tell the story, done. The text lands right in your note.
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Date, place & weather
When, where and in what weather? Randnotiz reads it from the photo and quietly adds it for you.
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Moods
Little emoji stickers with a name of your own – “Beach day”, “Family”, “Wanderlust”. Whatever you like.
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Your diary
All entries as notebook pages with a title. Plus a search that understands “Muenchen” when you mean “München”.
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Places & world map
Country and place are recognised offline. On the world map, every country you have been to lights up.
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Memories
“One year ago today …” – to flip through in full screen. Then the days around it, then everything else, nicely mixed.
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Collections
A trip, a summer, a person: bundles of entries that belong together. Sort them by dragging.
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Widget
The “Memory of the day” right on your home screen – a small ray of light in between.
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Lock
With fingerprint or face. While the lock is on, there are no screenshots and no preview in the app switcher.
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Backup (optional)
End-to-end encrypted in your own Google Drive. More on that further down.
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Light, dark & seasons
Warm paper by day, coffee brown by night – and subtle accents that change with the seasons.
A diary is private. Period.
That’s why Randnotiz is built so that your memories stay with you:
- No account, no server of its own. Your entries live in the app’s private storage on your phone.
- No ads, no tracking, no analytics. Really none.
- No coordinates stored. Of a photo’s location, only the country and place name are kept.
- Works offline. Only what a feature truly needs goes online – such as the weather on the day you took the photo.
- Your originals stay as they are. Randnotiz doesn’t change any photos in your gallery; it creates its own, smaller copies.
- Open source code. Randnotiz is free software (GPL-3.0) – every line can be read.
Safe and sound – even if your phone goes for a swim
A diary on just one phone is fragile: a drop, a theft, a new device – and years of memories would be gone. That is why Randnotiz can back up your diary to your own Google Drive. In such a way that nobody but you can look inside.
- On your phone “Dear diary …” – readable only here
- Gets encrypted still on the device, with your backup password
- Lands in your Drive Google only sees unreadable gibberish
📱 New phone, same diary
Sign in, enter your backup password, restore – notes, moods, collections and photos are back.
🔐 Encrypted first
AES-256 on your phone, before anything is uploaded. Even the file names reveal nothing.
🌙 Runs by itself
Once a day, only when something has changed. And photos as small copies – that saves your storage.
To unlock it, there is your backup password and an emergency key to write down. If both are gone, nobody can get into the backup anymore – not Google, not me, not you. So: keep the emergency key somewhere safe. 🗝️
Free. No catch.
Randnotiz is a hobby project, not a business model. I earn nothing from it and don’t want to – so there is nothing your data would have to “pay for”.
Good questions
And hopefully just as good answers.
What does Randnotiz cost?
Nothing. Randnotiz is free and will stay that way – no ads, no subscription, no in-app purchases. It is a private hobby project with no profit motive.
Can I try Randnotiz already?
Yes! Until Randnotiz is on the Play Store, the test version is available as an APK on GitHub. How that works is explained at the very bottom.
Is Randnotiz available for iPhone?
Not at the moment. Randnotiz only exists for Android, and the app is currently available in German only.
Do I need an account or internet?
No. Randnotiz works without signing in and largely offline. Internet is only needed for the weather on the day of the photo, the place search, depending on your phone dictation, and – if you use it – the backup.
What happens to my original photos?
Nothing at all. Randnotiz doesn’t change or delete any photos in your gallery. For each entry it creates its own, smaller copy – so your note stays complete even if you delete the original someday.
I have a new phone. How do I take my diary with me?
Via the backup: on the old phone, go to Settings → Backup and tap “Back up now”, sign in with the same Google account on the new phone and restore with your backup password or emergency key. Important: uninstalling deletes all notes – without a backup they are gone.
I forgot my backup password.
That’s what the emergency key is for, which the app shows you once during setup. If that is gone too, nobody can open the backup – that is the price of making sure only you can read it. On the phone itself, your entries are not affected.
Can Google read my backup?
No. Everything is encrypted on your phone before it is uploaded. Google only sees that encrypted files exist, how big they are and when the backup was made – not what is inside.
Who is behind this?
Me, Tjorve – all on my own and in my free time. Ideas, wishes and bug reports are warmly welcome on GitHub.
Try it right now
Randnotiz is on its way to the Google Play Store. Until then, you can install the test version straight from the GitHub repo.
- Download the APK. For almost all current phones the arm64 file, for older 32-bit devices the armeabi file.
- Open & allow. Android asks once whether your browser or file manager may install “unknown apps”.
- Get going. Install updates simply over the old version – your notes stay.
Important: uninstalling deletes all notes. In the test version, the Drive backup is only available to approved accounts – get in touch if you would like to try it. Ideas and bug reports are warmly welcome as an issue.