I built a small mobile app that shows you all the photos and videos you took on this exact calendar day across past years.

I started working on it after realizing that I almost never revisit my photo library. I take thousands of photos, but most of them just sit there. Existing “On This Day” features worked, but they always felt tied to cloud uploads, accounts, and algorithmic resurfacing — which didn’t sit well with me for something as personal as memories.

So I wanted to explore a different approach.

Ayer is fully local-first: • 100% on-device (no cloud, no sync) • No account, no login • No analytics, no tracking • Zero network calls — airplane mode works

The idea is very simple: you pick a date (or open the app today) and you see what you captured on that same day in previous years. Sometimes it’s joyful, sometimes it’s heavy, sometimes it’s completely ordinary — but revisiting memories by date gives them context rather than ranking them by “importance”.

A few details that might interest this crowd: • It handles large photo libraries (30k+ photos) smoothly • Navigation is date-first, not feed-based • Optional “then vs now” collages are generated locally • Built with React Native, using system photo APIs only

This isn’t meant to replace Apple Photos, Google Photos, or Lightroom. It’s more like a quiet, focused space that sits alongside them, designed for reflection rather than optimization.

If anyone is curious, it’s available on iOS and Android: https://www.chapiware.com/ayer/

I’d genuinely love feedback — especially from people who care about local-first software, privacy trade-offs, or performance with large datasets.

Thanks for reading.