Great memories deserve more than a place to sit. They deserve to be easy to find, meaningful to revisit, and safe to keep. That idea is at the heart of Octui.
Today we’re opening a new part of getoctui.com: a journal about building Octui, the decisions behind it, and the larger subject of preserving our personal histories.
Why write it down?
Software usually appears to the public after countless small decisions, failed experiments, design changes, and revisions. The finished product rarely tells that story. We want to preserve those steps, including the ones that didn't go according to plan.
This journal has two purposes. First, it should help future users see how Octui is evolving and why we make certain decisions. Second, it should create a permanent record of the project’s own history—from its early days as SortAi to the name, ideas, and working app taking shape today.
What you'll find here
- Build notes: the goal we set, the work completed, the results, what surprised us, and what comes next.
- Project history: a dated account of milestones, experiments, name changes, and lessons learned.
- Memory keeping: useful ideas for organizing, protecting, and enjoying a lifetime of photos and videos.
- Product direction: an explanation of what Octui can do now, what's under development, and what remains a long-term ambition.
What we're building
Octui began with a practical frustration: a large camera roll can contain thousands of important moments, yet finding the right one often takes far too much effort. The goal is to create a friendlier way to organize photos and videos, explore the people and events in them, and rediscover moments that might otherwise stay buried.
Our broader ambition is a memory intelligence system—one that helps people connect moments without taking control away from them. Some of that vision is still research and planning, not a feature available today.
Octui is in development. Features discussed in the journal may be prototypes, planned capabilities, or longer-term research directions. We will distinguish them from completed work.
A simple format for progress reports
To make these updates useful rather than promotional, our recurring format will be straightforward: What we wanted to accomplish. What we built. What happened. What changed. What we're doing next.
We’ll also add retrospective entries for important earlier development weeks, clearly labeled as looking back so the record remains honest about when it was written.
You're invited to follow along
If preserving your own photo history matters to you, we'd love for you to follow the journey. You can request early access and return here for development updates.
The story of Octui is still beginning. That's exactly why it's worth recording.