Souvenance Support

Answers to common questions, and how to reach the developer.

Contact

Email souvenance.app@icloud.com. Please mention your iPhone, iPad or Mac model and iOS, iPadOS or macOS version (Settings > General > About) and, if the problem concerns something you shared, which app you shared it from. Replies usually take a few days.

Frequently asked questions

Souvenance does not appear in the share sheet

Open Souvenance once after installing it. Then, in Safari or Photos, tap Share, scroll the row of app icons to the end, tap More, and turn on Souvenance. From then on it is in the share sheet of every app that shares links, text, photos, contacts, events, places or files.

Where do shared items go?

Everything you share lands in the Inbox, which you see in History and under Collect. In the share sheet you can also pick a Memory, or create a new one, so the item goes straight to the right place. Move items later with Move to… in the item's menu.

What is a Memory, and what is a Smart Memory?

A Memory is a folder in Collect that groups items around a moment: a trip, a project, a birthday. You move items into it, pick a cover photo with "Use as Memory thumbnail", and choose a view from the switcher in its toolbar: List, Gallery, Graph, Map or Story. A Smart Memory is defined by rules (type, title, tag, note, date or Memory) instead of by moving items, and it updates itself. Save the current History filter as a Smart Memory from the toolbar, or create one with New Smart Memory in Collect.

How do I add relations?

Open an item and tap Add relation under Relations, or long-press a card. Choose the kind of relation: Contains person, At place, At event, Is source for, Related to, Together with, or a Reaction, which is an emoji with no target. The Relate tab shows all your boxes as a graph; the Graph view inside a Memory shows just that Memory and its neighbours.

Where are the tabs on my iPad?

On iPad, and whenever Souvenance has a wide window in Split View or Stage Manager, the History, Collect and Relate tabs become a sidebar: History and Relate at the top, then your Memories under Collect, then your Smart Memories. Tap an entry to show it in the column next to the sidebar; items open there too. If the sidebar is hidden, swipe in from the left edge or tap the sidebar button in the toolbar. In Slide Over, or in a narrow Split View window, the tabs come back.

Can I drag things around on iPad?

Yes. Drag an item, or several selected items, onto a Memory in the sidebar or in a list to move them there; drag a Memory onto another to nest it. You can also drop photos, links, text and files from other apps, such as Safari, Photos or Files, into History, where they land in the Inbox, or into an open Memory.

Do my boxes sync between my iPhone, iPad and Mac?

Not by themselves: Souvenance has no cloud of its own, so each device has its own boxes. With Memories for Life you can keep the boxes in your own iCloud Drive (Preferences > Boxes), and every device signed in to the same iCloud account then sees the same boxes. Without it, bring a Memory across as a .mem file sent by AirDrop; opening it on the other device adds the Memory there, and a newer version of the file adds only the new items.

What does "When tapped" do?

Every item can be given an action: call or message a person, directions to a place, open an event in Calendar, open a link, or a custom link of your own. Open the item and choose under When tapped; the arrow beside each row does it once without changing the choice. The chosen action leads the item's card in History and is what a tile on the Home Screen does. A Memory sent as a .mem package carries the choices with it.

How do I put people and places on my Home Screen?

Add the Souvenance widget "Chosen items" to the Home Screen, then long-press it and choose Edit Widget to pick the items, a layout and large labels. Each tile does what you chose for that item. To set this up for someone else, prepare a Memory with their people, a date and the way home, send it as a package, and add the widget on their device.

What is Memories for Life?

Collecting, relating and sharing are free, with up to three Memories. Memories for Life is a single purchase, not a subscription, and Family Sharing covers your family. It unlocks Memories without limit, the Board, the Story as a PDF or in print, Smart Memories and iCloud Drive boxes. Restore Purchases is in Preferences.

Can I use Souvenance in my own language?

Souvenance is available in English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish and follows the language of your device. To run it in a different language than the rest of the device, open Settings > Apps > Souvenance > Language. Your boxes are the same in every language; only the interface changes.

Why does a photo suggest a place?

When a photo carries GPS coordinates, Souvenance looks for a place you already have within its radius and proposes to link it. If there is none, it proposes a new place named after the coordinates. With "Look up place names" turned on in Preferences, the coordinates are sent to Apple to suggest a real name and address instead. The setting is off by default.

Subscribing to a calendar asks for full calendar access

Subscribing copies the events of a calendar into a Memory and keeps it up to date each time the app opens, which needs full access to Calendar. Allow it in Settings > Apps > Souvenance, or skip the subscription and add single dates with Date in the + menu. Your calendar is only read, never changed. Unsubscribing keeps the events already copied.

How do I share a Memory with someone?

Long-press a Memory in Collect and choose Save. Souvenance writes a single .mem file to the Outbox, from which you can send it by Mail, Messages or AirDrop. The recipient opens the file in Souvenance and gets the whole Memory, including photos, notes and relations. Opening the same file twice adds nothing; a newer version of the file adds only the new items.

Where is my data, and how do I back it up?

Your boxes are a folder on your iPhone or iPad; Preferences shows its path. Every item is an ordinary file next to a small .meta.json file with its details, and relations are kept in one text file. The boxes are part of your device's normal iCloud or computer backup. To keep a copy of a Memory elsewhere, save it as a .mem file and store that in Files, or share individual files from an item's Share button.

Will deleting the app delete my boxes?

Yes. iOS and iPadOS remove an app's data together with the app. Save the Memories you want to keep as .mem files first, or make sure you have a recent device backup.

I deleted something by mistake

Deleted items and Memories move to the trash of the boxes and are removed for good after 30 days. Until then they are not lost; contact support if you need help getting an item back.

Items are missing or look wrong

Souvenance keeps an index of your boxes in memory and rebuilds it when files change. If a file you placed in the boxes folder does not show up, or a card shows stale details, choose Reindex in Preferences.

Opening a link, contact or event

Links open in Safari. A contact or event is kept as a .vcf or .ics file; Souvenance shows it and lets you add an event to Calendar, but editing is done in Contacts or Calendar.

Version history

1.0

First release, on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Share extension, History, Memories with list, gallery, map, graph, board and story views, relations and reactions, actions on items and the Chosen items widget, Pages and .mem packages, Smart Memories, place suggestions, calendar subscriptions, voice memos, tables and sketches, and the one-time purchase Memories for Life with Family Sharing. Eleven languages.