Stillcraft / Apps / Notch
A door frame for each child, the kind you mark their height on, with a notch for every week of their life that has a photo or a clip. Your phone's own camera does the shooting, with every mode it has; when you come back, the new pictures go on the door frame. A copy is kept in Notch, the originals stay in your gallery, and old pictures from the gallery land in the week they were taken. Free, no ads, no account, nothing leaves the phone.
Android 8.0+ · Free · Works offline · English & Русский
Only when a week has no picture: midweek and on its last day, at the half hour your family usually shoots on that day of the week, learned from your own pictures. Never at night. "Masha is 2 years 3 months. This version of her won't come again."
A childhood as the cross-section of a tree: a ring a year, 52 weeks round each, the notched weeks in the child's own crayon. Tap a ring for its year: pictures, weeks notched, the longest run, a height chart.
Mark a photo "repeat this spot": by the door, on the sofa, with the bear. Next time the earlier picture lies faintly over your phone's camera, so the child can be stood where they stood. A year ago is offered too.
The pictures of one spot become a film: the phone finds the faces and lines them up, and each picture melts into the next with the age written beneath.
A short clip a day; the film takes one second from each, with the date and age in pencil in the corner. A month, or a year in six minutes.
42 things of each age that leave without anyone noticing: holding your finger with the whole hand, starfish sleep, the mixed-up words, the gap-toothed smile. Each says how long it usually lasts. Keep it with a photo, a clip or their voice.
"Appo" for apple, in their own voice: hold to record. Whole sentences too: "Why does the moon follow our car?"
The same twelve questions every year, answered on video with the phone's camera. Play a year's answers one after another, or one question's answers across the years.
A hand on a sheet of A4, twice a year. Notch finds the sheet and the hand and traces round it to scale, and the outlines sit one inside the other. If it can't find them, draw round with a finger.
Brothers and sisters each get their own door frame. Put your son today next to your daughter when she was exactly as old.
On the 1st, the month on one card: a few prints, the ages and heights, a word they said. One tap sends it to the family chat.
No account, no cloud, no analytics, no internet permission. Faces are lined up by Android's own face finder, on the phone. Every picture, clip and recording goes into one backup zip.
| What | From | When |
|---|---|---|
| They grow in place | Pictures of one spot, faces lined up | Any time a spot has a few |
| A second a day | A short clip a day | A month or a year |
| Birthday interview | Twelve questions on video | Every birthday |
| Hands | A hand on a sheet of A4 | Twice a year |
| At the same age | Two children at the same age | When there are siblings |
| The month's postcard | A few prints, heights, a word | On the 1st |
On Xiaomi (MIUI / HyperOS), Huawei, Samsung and some other phones, allow Autostart for Notch and remove battery limits so the reminders arrive on time. The ghost of the earlier picture over the camera needs "display over other apps"; it is optional.
JDK 17+ (Android Studio's bundled JBR works) and the Android SDK. No camera code of its own: the phone's camera app is opened through the standard intents.
git clone https://github.com/bigdevwhale/notch.git cd notch ./gradlew testDebugUnitTest # unit tests ./gradlew assembleDebug # app.notch.dev ./gradlew assembleDebug -Pdemo # app.notch.demo with a made-up family ./gradlew testDebugUnitTest -Prender # the screens, as PNGs
Any photo or clip of the child in a week of their life. One is enough. Weeks before you started with Notch are "before the door frame", not missed.
Yes. The originals stay in your gallery; Notch keeps its own copy, so nothing breaks if you tidy the gallery later.
Yes. Pick them from the gallery and each one lands in the week it was taken, so the door frame fills in back to the day they were born.
No. It doesn't even ask for the permission. No account, no cloud, no ads, no analytics; pictures go nowhere unless you share them.
Settings → Backup saves every picture, clip and recording into one zip. Restore it on the new phone.
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Found a bug, missing a feature, or want it in your language? Tell us on GitHub.
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