On This Day

On This Day

Today, in years gone by.

Coming Soon

On This Day showing one card per year for September 6, each with a cover photo and a photo count

Open it once a day and see the photos you took on this date in other years. There's one page per year, and a Home Screen widget that picks a photo for you each morning.

The On This Day home screen listing 1, 2, 5, 6, and 9 years ago

One page per year

Every year you took photos on this day gets a card with a cover photo and a count. Favorites go first, and screenshots go last. The list fills in year by year, so the recent ones show up right away.

Browse the day

Tap a year to see everything you shot that day. Panoramas stay wide and portraits stay tall, so you can tell them apart. You can select a bunch at once to share or delete.

A day's photos in the On This Day grid, titled 2 years ago
The full-screen viewer showing a lakeside photo with its place and date, and favorite and share buttons

Look closer

Tap a photo to see it full screen, with where and when it was taken up top. Swipe to the next one, or pinch to zoom in. You can favorite it, rotate it, share it, or delete it right there.

A widget for the Home Screen

The widget shows one photo from this day in an earlier year. Tap it and that photo opens in the app. It comes in small and medium, and it works in a Smart Stack.

An iPhone Home Screen with the On This Day widget showing a lake photo captioned 2 years ago today

Favorites first

If you've hearted a photo in Photos, it's the one that leads its year.

Share with a caption

Shared photos come with how many years ago it was, and where, if the photo has a location.

Screenshots are optional

Leave screenshots and bursts out of your memories, or keep them in. It's a setting.

Light or dark

Follow the system, or pick one.

iPhone and iPad

One column on a phone, up to three on an iPad. iOS and iPadOS 17 or later.

Pull to refresh

Just downloaded some photos? Pull down and it looks again.

Your photos never leave your phone

On This Day reads your photo library and that's it. There's no server, no account, and no tracking. The widget keeps a few small thumbnails on your phone, and they blur on the Lock Screen the same way Photos does.

If you only give it access to some of your photos, it works with those and says so. Changing the selection is one tap away.

Questions

What does On This Day do?

It looks through your photos for anything taken on today's month and day in earlier years, and shows you one page per year. Tap a year to see the photos from that day, and tap a photo to see it full screen.

How is this different from Memories in Photos?

Memories picks what to show you and when. On This Day doesn't pick. Every day it shows every year you have photos from that date, and the widget does the same thing on your Home Screen.

Do my photos leave my phone?

No. There's no server, no account, and no tracking. The widget keeps a few small thumbnails on your phone, and they blur on the Lock Screen the same way Photos does.

What if I only give it access to some photos?

That works. It searches the photos you picked, tells you that's what it's doing, and gives you a one-tap way to change the selection.

How does the widget work?

It shows one photo from this day in an earlier year, with a caption saying how many years ago. Tap it and that photo opens in the app. It changes at midnight, and opening the app gets the next few days ready. It works in a Smart Stack too.

Which devices does it run on?

iPhone and iPad, on iOS or iPadOS 17 or later.

When can I get it?

Soon. It's not on the App Store yet. This page will have the link when it is.