Comparison

Time Caps vs Once 2

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Time Caps

Capture your thoughts and memories in digital time capsules to send to your future self. Organize your entries by mood and revisit past moments with unique features like 'Old Time' and 'Time Fortunes'.

Highlights
  • Daily mood-based journal entries
  • Send messages to your future self
  • Organize entries by timeline or calendar
  • Collect 'Time Fortunes' for writing
  • Voice message recording
  • Shake to reveal past entries
  • Siri and Shortcuts integration
Features
Read full description

***Featured on App Store*** Features: * Daily Caps: One day one cap, different colors for your different moods. * Today Card: Today's cap, On This Day, Old Time and fortune in one place. * Flow & Grid: Display journals in a timeline or a calendar. Fill your lovely life with colorful daily caps. * Years: Revisit each year from the sidebar, with all its caps and moods. * Time Fortunes: Collect fortunes by writing daily caps. Share in your mood color. * Future Caps: Write to your next birthday, to next Christmas, to the time after the exam/enrollment/entry, to the dear future you. * Echo Caps: Send yourself a piece of voice from the present. * Old Time: Shake your phone like a jar full of caps and meet your old days by serendipity. * Workshop: Regain cap pieces every day to craft more future caps. * Widgets: Meet your lovely widgets, glanceable anytime on your device. * Siri & Shortcuts: Write and open caps with Siri, Spotlight and Shortcuts. * iPad: Better on big screens, with multiple windows. * Account System: No more worry about accidentally removing the app or switching to a new phone. * Privacy Protection: Secure your journals with passcode lock or Touch ID/Face ID. * Daily Reminder: One day one cap! * Offline Use: Everything works well under no network connection. * Export & Share: Export your favorite caps to your albums or share them with your friends. * Time Traveler Pro: Subscribe to unlock exclusive features, enhance Daily Caps, double regaining Pieces, and enjoy premium sync. Your lovely designer and developer (same person :D) is working hard to explore and create more cool and useful features. Thanks for your liking and support! If you like it, don’t forget to come back for rating, encouraging your developer and helping Time Caps become better. Ideas or feedback are always welcome. Please email us at: hi.pol.chen@gmail.com. Crafted with love by Pol Terms of Use: https://timecaps.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://timecaps.app/privacy

About

Once 2

This app provides an elegant and private space to record life's moments, ideas, and emotions. It offers a rich writing experience with customizable themes, photo insertion, and automatic location and weather tagging. Entries can be organized with books and tags, searched, and exported or shared.

Highlights
  • Exquisite book-like reading experience
  • Elegant themes and custom fonts
  • Immersive full-screen writing
  • Rich text editing with photo insertion
  • Automatic weather, temperature, and location tagging
  • Organize with books, tags, and calendar view
  • Passcode protection and PDF export
Features
Read full description

Once is designed to inspire writing and focus on the essence of journal: all the moments, ideas, secrets, emotions and pictures - the nature of your life. It encourages you to record your inspirations, keep tracks of your stories, and easily share them with others. Some of the features are: • Exquisite experience of reading like a book • Elegant themes and customized fonts • Focused reading and immersive writing in full screen • Rich text editing support • Inserting multiple photos/images anywhere throughout the entries • Auto set weather, temperature and location • Books and Tags to filter entries • Calendar as an overview • Text searching • Passcode protecting your privacy • Export to PDF files • Share journal as a beautiful picture on social networks • Share plug-ins (support for Safari, memos, etc.): text sharing as a new diary (If the icon is not displayed, click more to activate) • Syncing between iPhone, iPad and Mac via iCloud • iOS / iPadOS / macOS universal app - purchase once, use everywhere! If you have any problems or suggestions, please let us know: Email: mooteeapps@outlook.com Term of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula

Screenshots

Time Caps4 screens
Once 24 screens

Verdict

The call

Time Caps and Once 2 both sit at 4.8 stars, but that hides the real split: 84% of Time Caps's written reviews are positive against 61% of Once 2's. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Time Caps sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Once 2 sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Time Caps holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 156 and 60 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 84% of Time Caps's written reviews are positive against 61% of Once 2's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Time Caps ships an update every 2 months, Once 2 every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Time Caps versus Once 2: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTime CapsOnce 2
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (156 ratings) — better4.6 (60 ratings)
Positive reviews83.7% of reviews — better60.6% of reviews
Number of ratings156 — better60
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size29 MB39 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer灿海 陈实 许

Customer experience

Time Caps

All ratings156 ratings
Positive96.2%
Neutral3.2%
Negative0.6%
Written reviews49 reviews
Positive83.7%
Neutral8.2%
Negative8.2%

Once 2

All ratings60 ratings
Positive91.7%
Neutral1.7%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews170 reviews
Positive60.6%
Neutral14.7%
Negative24.7%

User reviews

Time Caps

From 156 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💡 Unique concept of time capsules
  • 👍 Easy and simple to use
  • 💖 Encourages journaling habit
  • 😊 Calming and beautiful design
  • ✨ Helps self-reflection and growth

Room to improve

  • 💰 In-app purchases for features
  • 💸 High cost for capsules/features
  • 🔒 Password lock feature requires subscription
  • 📈 Difficulty in exporting data
  • 😔 Word cap can be restrictive

Once 2

From 60 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Nice interface and design
  • 📖 Book-like writing experience
  • ✍️ Comfortable for journaling
  • ✨ Minimalist and clean
  • 🖼️ Ability to insert photos

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezes
  • 🐌 Slow performance and lag
  • 🗑️ Loss of unsaved work
  • 🔄 Poor syncing across devices
  • 💸 Paid features for basic functionality (passcode)

Bugs and requests

Time Caps

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • 🐛 Interface issues with updates
  • 🐛 Face ID issues reported

Requested features

9 requests
  • Ability to export previous posts
  • Lower gem prices for capsules
  • More options for describing the day
  • Add template feature
  • Support dark mode
Show 4 more
  • Ability to add photos to daily journal entries
  • Option to get one future cap a week
  • Allow editing of old time caps without currency
  • More descriptive options for daily mood

Once 2

Reported bugs

19 issues
  • App crashes when editing
  • App freezes when typing
  • Entries lost after crashing
  • Syncing issues between devices
  • Cursor jumps randomly during typing
Show 14 more
  • Export function not working
  • Text overlap in export preview
  • Paid subscription not recognized
  • App crashes on Mac when editing
  • App freezes when switching between apps on Mac
  • Sync issues after updating to Once 2
  • iCloud sync not turning back on
  • Glitching and out-of-order books
  • Cannot send feedback through the app
  • Dark mode not working
  • App hangs when selecting text or editing
  • App crashes when copying and pasting
  • App freezes and requires force quit
  • App lags significantly

Requested features

16 requests
  • Arrow navigation for pages
  • Pen functionality for iPad
  • Voice recording feature
  • More colorful icons
  • Ability to add multiple photos at once
Show 11 more
  • Share to feature for direct content sharing
  • Option to resize images
  • Dark mode
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Free passcode option
  • Improved editing tools (punctuation, grammar)
  • Make the app pink
  • Make the app free
  • Sync Once 1 diaries to Once 2
  • Keyboard hides automatically when typing
  • More journal/notebook options without payment

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Time Caps

Subscriptions2
  • Time Traveler Pro (Monthly)$3.991 Month
  • Time Traveler Pro (Yearly)7 Days trial$24.991 Year
One-time4
  • 1200 Cap Pieces$0.99
  • 2888 Cap Pieces$1.99
  • 3600 Cap Pieces$2.99
Show 1 more
  • 5000 Cap Pieces$3.99
4 purchases

Once 2

Subscriptions2
  • Once Pro 1x3 Days trial$0.991 Month
  • Once Pro 12x1 Month trial$9.991 Year
One-time2
  • Legacy Version SupportFree
  • Once Pro ∞$29.99

Questions

Is Time Caps free?
Time Caps is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Once 2 free?
Once 2 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Time Caps or Once 2?
Time Caps is rated higher. Time Caps averages 4.8 out of 5 from 156 ratings, while Once 2 averages 4.6 from 60 ratings.
Do Time Caps or Once 2 have ads?
Neither Time Caps nor Once 2 shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Time Caps or Once 2?
Time Caps ships an update every 2 months, and Once 2 every 3 months. Most recently, Time Caps was updated on November 6, 2026 and Once 2 on November 3, 2026.

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