Amber Archive
Rescue your memories
Only for iPhone
Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
The app your memories live in keeps everything over 5 GB on what it
calls temporary storage. Twelve months of it, announced in September
2025. Amber gets yours out before that runs out, for free, and then
gives them somewhere to live.
WHAT THE EXPORT ACTUALLY GIVES YOU
You can request your memories for free, straight from the app that
holds them. What arrives is harder to use than people expect.
None of the files carry a capture date. Import them naively and ten years
of photos all land stamped with today. The real dates, along with the
locations, sit in a separate index file. Your captions and drawings come
as separate transparent images that have to be laid back over the photo.
Amber puts it back together. Real capture dates. Real locations. Captions
merged back onto the picture where they belong.
IT TELLS YOU WHAT IT COULD NOT GET
Most importers quietly show you fewer memories than you had. Amber counts
everything, and if something could not be rescued it says so, says which,
and says why.
This matters more than it sounds. The export hands over fewer
memories than its own index counts, and nothing tells you why. Silence
about the difference would have looked like the app losing them.
One thing to know before you start: memories in My Eyes Only are counted
in that index but are never included in the export. That is the usual
reason an archive comes up short, and no app can rescue them, including
this one.
THEY STAY YOURS
Your memories land in a folder you choose, ideally iCloud Drive, as
ordinary files with real dates. Not dumped unsorted into your camera roll.
Not locked inside this app.
Amber reaches that folder through permission you grant, which iOS
enforces. It never holds a copy. Delete the app tomorrow and everything is
exactly where you left it, and opens in anything.
Which is also the catch, and worth saying plainly: this is not a backup,
and there is no copy of your memories anywhere except the folder you
chose. Keep that folder in iCloud Drive, or another cloud that syncs and
is backed up. On one phone alone, a lost phone is a lost archive.
And check before you delete anything at the source. Nothing here can
promise your export was complete, because nothing outside that app can
see what it still holds.
AND THEN IT KEEPS GOING
The rescue is the beginning.
On This Day. One memory a day, from every year you have, every morning.
Timeline. Ten years, scrubbable, jump to any date.
Map. Everywhere you have been, clustered into places you will recognise.
Widget. Today's memory on your Home Screen.
THE PRICE, SAID UP FRONT
Getting your memories out is free, and it stays free. The rescue, the real
dates and places put back, the captions laid down again, the files sitting
in a folder you own. You can stop there, pay nothing, and keep all of it.
The one-time purchase is for what happens afterwards: the memory each morning,
the timeline, the map, the widget. It is offered after your first import
has already worked, never before. No subscription. No ads. No account.
Nothing leaves your phone.
Amber is an independent app, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by,
or connected to the service your export comes from. It has no access
to that service's servers and cannot retrieve anything already deleted
there. It reads the export file you requested yourself.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Nothing has changed inside the app. The screenshots on the App Store were in the wrong order, and this puts them right.
The developer, Jim Robin Schlupp, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Jim Robin Schlupp
- Size
- 13.8 MB
- Category
- Photo & Video
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English and German
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Unlock the whole app $5.00
- Copyright
- © 2026 Jim Robin Schlupp