# Shell Museum: Identify Shells — user reviews > 34 indexed App Store user reviews of Shell Museum by Shell Museum and Educational Foundation, Inc., rated 2.30/5 from 54 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shell-museum-identify-shells/id1451016485/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shell-museum-identify-shells/id1451016485.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 14 · 4★ 1 · 3★ 3 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 31 ## Newest reviews (13 of 34) ### 2/5 — Not good for west coast *2024-06-09* I thought I’d give the app a shot since it’s the most talked about for shell identification on the internet but it’s not of much use for the Southern California coast. It couldn’t identify a close up of a living sand dollar… oh well. At least the shell listings might point me in the right direction if the shell here is in the same family…. ### 1/5 — Misses the most common shells fro east coast Florida *2022-04-04, version 1.0.30* 2 years ago it was called a work in progress. Well they’ve made little progress ### 1/5 — Worst app *2022-03-14, version 1.0.30* Absolutely worthless to pay for this app!!! Every shell I took a pic of was identified wrong and the suggested shells didn’t even come close to how my pic looked. There selection of shells on this app is very little and you shouldn't have to even pay anything for this app. It's a complete rip off!!! 😡 ### 1/5 — Super narrow scope *2022-03-08, version 1.0.30* This app covers less than 70 species/shells and only from SW Florida. Definitely not worth the $2. ### 2/5 — High hopes, disappointed… *2022-01-28, version 1.0.30* I had such high hopes that this app would help me identify my seashells…. It identified one out of 50+. I wish there were more shells in the Shell Guide, as it was the only thing that provided the most info. ### 2/5 — It’s just ok. *2022-01-21, version 1.0.30* I was super excited to try the app after visiting the museum. I found several shells on Sanibel that I needed to identify. The app could not find the shells! Not worth it. ### 2/5 — Terrible *2021-09-11, version 1.0.30* This app couldn’t identify any of the shells we had. ### 1/5 — Don’t get this ! *2021-07-03, version 1.0.30* Wasted money . Shells are always wrong. Same few options pop up no matter which shell you use ### 1/5 — Limited use *2021-05-12, version 1.0.30* Very few shells available, restricted to Florida area. Would not repurchase. ### 1/5 — Junk *2021-04-18, version 1.0.30* Tried several shells not even close no use to me waisted time and money ### 1/5 — Fail *2021-03-30, version 1.0.30* Tried two shells and it failed on both. However the app that identifies plants seems to work amazing. Can’t help but conclude the devs are just bad at what they do ### 1/5 — Shell Identifier does not work *2019-06-02, version 1.0.25* Happy to support the shell museum, but the shell identifier does not work — even for common shells I have found on the beaches of Sanibel. Really cool idea though. ### 1/5 — Disappointed *2019-04-25, version 1.0.25* The i love shelling website has many more photos of shells to work with for free. The photo identifier did not work for the shell I was trying to identify. I tried two more common shells and it did not work. The possible choices that it generates were not even close which makes me doubt its ability to work. **Developer response:** Thank you for your feedback. Your $1.99 purchase helps fund the important mission of the Shell Museum. In the initial release, the app is only trained to identify and display the 60 most common shells of Sanibel beaches. Hopefully in future versions we can expand this to include additional shells. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work *2024-04-08* Won’t open when I click on shell information ### 1/5 — Needs more data *2024-03-19* Could not identify a Common Nutmeg which has some pretty distinct features…. ### 1/5 — Use google lens instead *2024-02-10* This app should not be used. I showed it a huge variety of shells (conical, bivalve, snail) and it produced the same list of possibilities almost every time. Google lens is actual AI and will always get it right. (Go to regular google and hit the square icon on the right side of the search box.) ### 1/5 — Can’t ID anything. *2023-08-12* Tried about 5 shells app couldn’t ID any. Suggestion pictures weren’t even close ### 1/5 — Not very good *2023-01-01, version 1.0.30* I tried 3 different common shells in Hawaii. Didn’t identify any of them correctly. Oh well, 1.99 not too bad to throw away on this app. ### 1/5 — Does not do what it touts *2022-11-23, version 1.0.30* I downloaded this app after I went shelling on Tybee Island. It did not identify one single shell correctly. A total waste of money. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work at all *2022-06-21, version 1.0.30* Won’t identify anything correctly. Better luck just using google. And google is free unlike this terrible app. ### 1/5 — Does not identify *2022-06-09, version 1.0.30* I had better results doing a Google search ### 1/5 — Didn’t work *2022-05-22, version 1.0.30* Did not identify the shells. ☹️ ### 1/5 — I expected more *2022-05-12, version 1.0.30* I have many many shells. This app knows only a very small few ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Don’t bother *2022-09-13, version 1.0.30* I live in Florida and collect shells. This app has NEVER identified a shell from my photograph correctly. Even the most common simple shells were not identified correctly. Ridiculous. Don’t bother with this app. Also I could not post this unless I gave it more than 4 star. Ha what a joke. ### 5/5 — Need more Shells More Potential Fails Short *2021-09-01, version 1.0.30* Add Spondylus (Spiny Oysters) Please ### 5/5 — Great for IDing SW FL shells *2021-07-19, version 1.0.30* This is a great app to assist in identifying shells found specifically in Southwest Florida. The process of using my phone’s camera to take images and get responses with images of what it is and the level of certainty is appreciated. ### 5/5 — Shell Guide *2019-04-14, version 1.0.25* Awesome. A great app for a great museum. ### 5/5 — Crazy Cool App!!! *2019-03-17, version 1.0.25* We have jars and jars of shells we have collected and identifying them is great fun. And to think that we may be teaching the App with the photos we are taking. I hope someone is monitoring the choices we are making. Crazy Cool App! It doesn’t know what a sand dollar is. Suggest it allow for submittals of new species for consideration. Excellent. Well done! ### 5/5 — Cool App *2019-03-15, version 1.0.25* It identified so many of my shells I found on Sanibel Island today! I’m sure I will use it often. ### 5/5 — Shell seeker happiness! *2019-03-13, version 1.0.25* This is fantastic! Identifying all my shells found on Captiva. So satisfying! Thanks! ### 5/5 — so useful! *2019-03-01, version 1.0.25* This app is a great & easy way identify shells in sw Florida! I use it whenever I can. ### 3/5 — Wish it had more *2023-06-15* I thought this would be a little more helpful. But since it main only has marine mollusk from Florida…it doesn’t really help for other regions or freshwater mollusk. But hopefully more improvements adds more functionality. ### 3/5 — A work in progress *2020-04-03, version 1.0.28* Not a bad app. I still think it is a work in progress though. There is not very many shells that can be identified. Like the AI can only identify a certain amount of shells. And how the shell guide only has a certain amount of shells. Another thing that bugged me was that in the description of the shells it did not say where you could find them, what there range was, or what their habitat was. I hope that this app is worked on more because I think it could be a very useful tool. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*