Retro — Photos with Friends

• Free to download
• In-app purchases

Last verified 31 Jul 2026

4.8 9854 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5the app I’ve been waiting for

   Now that all my other fave social media apps feel like they’ve been completely taken over by memes and ads and random accounts who aren’t actually my social circles, I’ve been SEARCHING for anything that actually helps me keep up with farther away friends and family. I tried so many others but found them pushy or hard to keep up with or not private enough. This app SOLVES IT ALL. It doesn’t try to force you to post daily, but still encourages you to put something from your week so you can look back on your month/year/etc. the default is private and “old” posts are hidden unless you give access (no need to clean out old posts). Going through new posts from friends are always brought to the top and easy to go through or comment. The recaps at the end of each week and month are soooo gorgeous and fun to share with friends off the app too. I truly have loved every second with this app and have told at least a dozen friends of mine to join asap so I can keep up with them. Please please please keep this app as clean and inner circle focused as it is today, it’s MAGICAL

   fotomojodojo · 31 Jul 2026

2. 5/5Amazing social app!!

   The social app we’ve all been looking for! Lots of pros: a polished design, returning to social media’s roots of seeing friends’ memories instead of content overload, an app that works very well with friends but also is nice as a private journal (though with friends is better!), and an overall lack of spam via content or notifications. There are a couple of sore spots that I want to raise, but they’re ultimately minor wishes: - The stories UX — tap to see the next post from the same friend, swipe to see a different friend — is confusing here. Because all the content is displayed like in a camera roll, I keep naturally swiping instead of tapping. This leads me to miss content. Maybe different gesture mechanisms, like swiping left to see the next post (whether from the same friend or a different friend) and swiping up to switch friends may make it better. - I want to add captions to my posts!! We’ve been resorting to using comments to do so, which is fine, but it feels more natural to add/edit a caption to do so. No need to caption when selecting images to post— I just want to be able to edit an already posted photo with a caption. - I wish there had been a slightly more aggressive growth/network creation strategy. Nothing near the level of Lapse (that NUX made me never want to use that app ever again), but I think some more mechanisms to encourage people to add friends would be nice. There’s social app fatigue with all the new apps popping up, and it’s unfortunate Retro isn’t winning due to what feels like poor network effects.

   Unimpressed2K16 · 31 Jul 2026

3. 4/5Almost Perfect

   I love almost everything about this app. I LOVE that there are no ads, no suggested content, no algorithms, and especially that it’s not owned by a fascist oligarch. It’s clean and simple and a breath of fresh air. What I don’t like is that your followers can’t see your posts for that week unless they also posted something for that week (and vise versa). This is not doable for a few of my friends and family, like my 93-year old mother. She enjoys seeing everyone’s pictures but she obviously isn’t going to post anything and I think it’s wrong to force people to make a post in order to see posts from those they follow. At the very least give the user the option of allowing or not allowing views based on whether or not a follower also posts. Also, as another user suggested, please allow uploading of multiple photos from different weeks / dates and have the app sort and post them. Also, I could find no way to add any text to my post unless it was by adding a comment. Why??? Give us a way to say something about our photo without having to add a comment, please. Fix these and it’s a 5-star app.

   KentuckyJBird · 31 Jul 2026

4. 5/5So far so good!

   Just started using this and it’s a great little app. It is like a throwback to old days of IG but better: especially love the recap view. I was even tempted to invite a few friends lol but I’m waiting to see how I use it long term. Since you can only have one account/handle (as far as I can see) I went back and forth trying to decide how I was gonna use it: photo dump, visual journal, hobby tracker etc. I wanted to use it multiple ways like I do with IG and the separate accts I have on there but don’t see that option yet. But so far I love the way the app works, it’s smart and intuitive and ad-free. And I love being able to control who sees my stuff and cut the noise of lots of random feeds floating through my own. Great job folks: please don’t junk it up with random access, and ads and filters and reels! Thanks for making this and advertising it on IG so I could find it!

   knitizen · 31 Jul 2026

5. 5/5It’s turned into my photo diary and I love it <3

   This is such a fun app and totally free too! Everyone should at least try it. I don’t usually write reviews but I had to for retro. It’s so fun to post a photo a day with a little caption. It’s also so fun to see my friends photos. It feels different than Instagram or Snapchat. Idk how to describe it but it’s seriously slowly becoming my favorite app. The monthly recaps are so cool and customizable and you can even print them out or send people postcards. It’s so impressive. Kudos to the team behind this app. Keep going. The only thing I would say is whenever I show someone they app, they tell me they’ve never heard of it! I would suggest some marketing or social media presence to spread the word bc I feel like once more people know about this app, it’ll blow up. Wishing yall nothing but success! Thanks for such a cool app. 🫶🏼

   Bri Nicole (: · 31 Jul 2026

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