The Timegrove journal
How we build a place to keep things.
Notes on privacy that cost something, on file formats meant to outlive their app, and on the features we decided not to build.
Privacy
We tried CloudKit sync and removed it
It syncs rows, not files. Your second device would get every card with every photo missing.
28 Jul 2026 · 7 min
Engineering
Drawing a timeline that curves: how Vine works
One continuous path, and the bays it has to open for a photo.
Product
Why your tree doesn’t die when you’re away
Streaks are a retention mechanic. Memory is not a habit to be enforced.
Design
A book you can hold: designing the 21×21 cm photobook
Not A4. Square, 21 cm a side, 12 mm of air at every edge — and one page per memory, whatever that memory is.
Open format
The .tmln format, and why getting your data out is free
A zip holding a manifest, a data.json and a media folder. The two formats that carry your grove whole are the two we will never charge for.
Field notes
What 32 templates taught us about how people remember
Thirty-two starting points, five groups, and the four that ship with the reminders switched off.
No growth hacks, no launch-week noise.
There is no newsletter — a mailing list is a database of people, and we do not keep those. Subscribe by RSS instead, or come back when you think of it.