Best apps for memory keeping

How many times have you whipped out your smartphone to capture a giggling kid at the playground? Or recorded your tot reciting their first “A-B-C” and forwarded the video to the grand-folks? But don’t rely solely on your camera roll to record all those memories. Oh no, there are way cooler ways to do that. Here are three of our favourite apps for precious memory keeping.  

1. Limetree, Free from the App Store 

This is clever. Very clever. You're not just creating a memory bank for your own needs, but rather a time capsule to gift to your children when they're older. You upload your favourite photos, videos and audio of your kids and there's even a place to write them a letter.

Even better are the regular emails you get from the Limetree team with ideas for memories worth capturing. For instance, the first email I received challenged me to make a family portrait. But not just any portrait. 

It asked "Why don't you shoot a video where each family member presents himself or herself and says something about the rest of the family? Or record the sound of  everyone's laughter? Why not write down a short paragraph talking about your family?" 

Love those ideas!  

You can have many devices connected to the same account, and allow Dad, Grandma and Aunt Jane access to all the memories via the Cloud storage. 

Here's a wee video showing you how it works: 

 2. MementoBox, $5.29 from the App Store  

More like a traditional baby record book, this is divided into three sections to record your baby’s first year.

• My Arrival – a place to store your pregnancy photos and scans, to tell your birth story and keep a record of the gifts you receive.
• My First Year – the first smile, word, crawl etc. All those big milestones.
• My World – build a time capsule of the year your baby was born, from top song, movie to news headlines. 

3.  Artkive, Free from the App Store  

It's a conundrum. Which of your child's precious masterpieces to keep for posterity, and which to bin? Now that problem is solved! Artkive (clever name that, get it? art and archive?) allows you to create accounts for each of your kids, take a snap of their artwork and add it to their individual file. You can also create a share circle of family and friends who might like to see what your budding Picasso's been up to. Better yet, you can turn all those works of art into a book at the end of their school years.  A great service for those of us who are simply far too busy to do it ourselves. 

Published: July 2013