Personal Memory Reel
Enter dated notes → get emotional illustrated memory reel with narration
Ready to create your memory reel
Enter memories with dates. Tool creates illustrated timeline and emotional narrated video.
Why I Made This Memory Thing
My phone has like 8,000 photos and I can never find anything. Last month I spent 20 minutes looking for pictures from my cousin's wedding just to prove to my friend that yes, I actually went. That's when I realized - what's the point of having all these memories if I never look at them?
So I built this. You dump in some dates and quick notes about what happened, hit a button, and boom - you've got a little video with pictures and a voice reading everything out. Takes less time than making coffee. My sister used it for her kid's first year and now my mom watches that video like every week.
How to Actually Write Your Memories
Just start with the date - year, month, day, with dashes between them. Then put a colon. Then write whatever you remember. That's it.
Real Examples That Work
This works: 2024-06-20: Burned dinner so we ordered pizza instead
This doesn't: That time we got pizza (no date = tool gets confused)
Be specific enough that you'll remember what you're talking about later. "Fun day" doesn't mean anything six months from now. "Went kayaking and flipped the boat" - now that's a memory.
What People Actually Use This For
My friend Rachel documents everything her toddler does. First time eating solid food, first time saying mama, first time throwing spaghetti at the wall - all of it. She makes a new reel every few months and posts them on Instagram. Her family eats it up.
I know a guy who used it to track his weight loss journey. Entered his starting weight, gym milestones, when he finally fit into his old jeans again. Made the reel and showed it at his birthday party. Pretty cool way to visualize progress.
Other stuff I've seen:
- Wedding planning timeline - from engagement to honeymoon
- Job hunt documentation (rejections and all, for the humor)
- Road trip across multiple states
- Pregnancy journey week by week
- Learning a new language, tracking practice sessions
Figuring Out the Settings
Video Length
Short answer: more memories = longer video. Got 3 things to remember? Pick 30 seconds. Got 10? Go with 60 or 90 seconds.
The math is simple. Pick 60 seconds and enter 6 memories, each one gets 10 seconds of screen time. That's plenty. Any shorter and the narration sounds rushed. Any longer and people lose interest.
Voices and Vibes
Whatever voices are on your computer show up in that dropdown. Some sound robotic, some sound almost normal. Just try a few and pick whichever one doesn't make you cringe.
The mood thing changes how everything looks:
| Mood | When to Use It | What It Looks Like |
|---|---|---|
| Happy & Joyful | Birthday parties, vacations, good news | Bright colors, cheerful vibe |
| Nostalgic | Looking back on old times | Warm browns, vintage feel |
| Reflective | Serious moments, life changes | Blues and calmer tones |
About Those Auto-Generated Pictures
The tool reads what you wrote and draws little pictures to match. They're super basic - not going for art gallery quality here. Just simple visuals so your video isn't boring to watch.
Say "beach vacation" and you get sand and water. Say "got a puppy" and you get a cute dog drawing. Say "family dinner" and you get people sitting together. It picks up on keywords and does its best.
Words That Make Better Pictures
Some descriptions work better than others:
- Holiday names: Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's - these all trigger specific imagery
- Location words: beach, mountains, city, park - helps set the scene
- Event types: wedding, graduation, birthday, anniversary
- Animals: any mention of pets or animals gets illustrated
- Activities: camping, hiking, cooking, traveling
If your description doesn't match anything specific, you just get a heart. Which honestly fits most memories anyway - they're things we love remembering.
Advice From Regular Users
Don't go crazy entering 50 memories at once. Start with maybe 5-7 from recent months. See how it turns out. Then make another one for a different time period. Multiple short reels beat one massive overwhelming one.
Short descriptions sound way better when the robot voice reads them. Compare these:
"Took the kids to the zoo" - sounds fine
"Took the kids to the zoo and we saw elephants and lions and they loved the penguins especially Emma who wouldn't stop talking about them" - sounds like a run-on sentence when spoken
If you're making this for somebody else, consider recording yourself talking instead of the computer voice. Play the video on one device, record your screen while you narrate on another. Takes an extra minute but feels way more personal.
Where Your Memories Actually Go
Nowhere. Seriously. Everything stays on your computer. The tool doesn't send anything to the cloud or save it on some server. It all happens right in your browser window.
When you download the video, that file goes to your downloads folder like any other file. You control it completely. Nobody else can see it unless you share it. Close the browser tab and everything you typed disappears.
I designed it this way because honestly, would you trust some random website with your personal memories? I wouldn't. So I made sure nothing leaves your device.
Tech Requirements
Any regular browser works. Chrome, Firefox, Safari, whatever you normally use. If you can watch YouTube videos, you can use this tool.
Computer or laptop is better than phone for making the actual video files. Phones can do it, but sometimes the download button gets weird on mobile browsers. You can still type in your memories and watch them on your phone though - that part works fine everywhere.
The voice feature needs browser permissions, but that's usually automatic. If nothing happens when you hit play, check if you accidentally blocked audio or something.