Comparison

JunkDrawer vs Trace by Aura

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

Head to head
About

JunkDrawer

This app indexes your screenshots using on-device OCR and AI classification to make them searchable by keywords, amounts, or content type. It extracts key information like phone numbers and addresses into tappable pills for easy access. Your data remains private and on your device.

Highlights
  • On-device OCR for full-text search
  • AI classification of screenshots
  • Structured data extraction (phone numbers, OTPs, etc.)
  • Tappable information pills
  • Domain-aware data formatting
  • Privacy-focused, no cloud sync
Features
Read full description

Every iPhone has a thousand screenshots. The parking spot at the airport, the OTP from the bank, the auto driver's address, the kid's exam result, the prescription you snapped before the chemist closed. Photos already saves them. Finding them, three months later, is the problem. JunkDrawer indexes every screenshot you share to it - fully on your device - so you can find anything later. By word, by ₹ amount, or just by the vibe of what it was. WHAT IT DOES • OCR over English. Every word inside the screenshot becomes searchable. • Apple Intelligence classifies each screenshot - receipt, prescription, ticket, contact, invitation, social post, exam result, food, map, document, and more. • A one-line summary so you can skim a hundred screenshots without opening any. • Structured extraction. Phone numbers, OTPs, ₹ amounts, dates, addresses, UPI handles, IFSC codes, dosages, tracking numbers - pulled out as tappable pills. One tap to call, copy OTP, open Maps, copy the total. SEARCH THAT ACTUALLY WORKS Full-text + semantic + visual labels, all at once. Type "biryani" or "₹440" or "diabetes meds" - the right screenshot surfaces. No mode switching. No syntax. DOMAIN-AWARE • ₹ formats in lakhs and crores when they should. • UPI handles aren't treated as broken email addresses. • IFSC codes are first-class. • Phone numbers in +91 format pretty-print correctly. FULLY ON-DEVICE This matters more for screenshots than for almost any other category of personal data. Your screenshots are your bank app, your prescriptions, your OTPs. • No account, no cloud, no analytics, no telemetry. • OCR runs on Apple's Vision framework. Classification runs on Apple Foundation Models. Embeddings come from Apple's Natural Language framework. Nothing leaves your phone. • Delete the app and every screenshot it indexed is deleted with it. Your Photos library is never touched. • If iCloud Backup is on, your drawer rides to your next iPhone automatically. • Manual export creates a single .junkdrawer file you can stash anywhere — iCloud Drive, AirDrop to your Mac, email yourself. Tap one to import on a fresh install. HONEST ABOUT STATE • Pending screenshots show a small dot until they're analyzed. No fake completeness. • Settings tells you exactly which features are running and which aren't. • If the AI gets a kind wrong, change it from the screenshot's menu. Edit a wrong capture date the same way. WHAT IT ISN'T • Not another Photos app - your library stays where it is. • Not cloud sync (the schema is ready; sync ships in a later update). • Not a notes or journaling app. • Just one thing, done well. REQUIREMENTS Apple Intelligence required for full features (iPhone 15 Pro or later, iOS 26 recommended). Without it, full-text search and entity extraction still work on every screenshot - just no AI summaries or classification. Free forever, with an optional tip jar inside. Throw it in. Find it later.

About

Trace by Aura

This app helps you remember why you saved something by prompting you to add a reason. It automatically organizes your saved content and brings relevant items back to your attention when they might be useful. Search by meaning, not just keywords, to find what you need.

Highlights
  • Save content with a personal reason
  • Automatic organization without folders or tags
  • Content resurfaces when relevant
  • Search by meaning, not just keywords
  • Cross-device sync (iPhone, iPad, Mac)
  • Apple Watch integration for quick capture
Features
Read full description

People don't forget information. They forget why it mattered. You save things all day. A reel, a link, a screenshot, a thought you did not want to lose. Weeks later you find them again and they mean nothing, because the reason you saved them is gone. Trace keeps the reason. SAVE IT, AND SAY WHY Share a reel, a link, a photo or a note into Trace, or capture a thought directly. Trace asks one short question: why does this matter? Your answer, in your own words, is the thing Trace protects. Skip the question and Trace says so plainly rather than inventing a reason on your behalf. IT SORTS ITSELF Trace reads what you saved on your device and files it. There are no folders to build and no tags to maintain. When it is unsure where something belongs it shows you its guess and lets you correct it in one tap. IT COMES BACK ON ITS OWN Trace watches for the moment a saved thing becomes useful again and brings it forward. When you wrote a reason, it shows you your sentence rather than a summary of it. When Trace is not sure, it stays quiet. Under uncertainty the correct behavior is silence, and Trace is built to prefer it. You choose how often it may interrupt and which hours stay quiet. Any memory can be silenced: it stays in your vault and stays searchable, it just stops arriving unasked. ASK YOUR VAULT Search by meaning rather than exact words. When Apple Intelligence is available on your device, Trace phrases what it found in its own words. When it is not, Trace searches with its built in engine and tells you so, instead of quietly getting worse. ON IPHONE AND IPAD Start on iPhone and continue on iPad. Trace hands off the memory you are reading, and on iPad it opens into a sidebar and split view, with Apple Pencil Scribble in the fields you write into. FROM YOUR APPLE WATCH Catch a thought on your wrist the moment you have one. Speak it and file it into a collection, or hum a tune and keep the raw audio, not a transcription of it. It reaches your vault through your private iCloud, and a voice memo plays back here and on your Mac, where you can save the file out. PRIVACY, WRITTEN AS A CONTRACT There is no Trace account and no Trace server. There is nothing to sign up for. Trace collects nothing about you, sells nothing, and carries no ads and no third party trackers. Reading and understanding happen on your device, using Apple's on-device intelligence. iCloud Sync is on by default, so a lost or replaced iPhone does not lose your vault. Your memories are kept in your own private iCloud, where they also appear on your other Apple devices. It is your iCloud account, not a Trace server, and Trace cannot read it. Apple manages the keys, so turn on Advanced Data Protection for the strongest protection. You can turn it off in Connections, and new memories then stay only on this iPhone. Link previews are off until you switch them on. When they are on, Trace fetches the public preview a page already publishes about itself, from a fixed list of sites. It sends the link and nothing else. Your notes and your vault are never part of that request. Privacy is not only about where something is kept. It is about where it shows up. A Lock Screen, a widget, a wrist someone else can see and a television in a shared room are not the same kind of place, and Trace treats each one as a decision rather than a default. You can mark a memory to appear only inside Trace, and it will stay off all of them. Export everything or delete everything, whenever you like. Deleting a memory also removes what Trace read from it, any transcript, and what it learned about its meaning. WHERE TRACE SHOWS UP Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, StandBy, a Control Center capture button, Live Activities, Siri and Shortcuts, Spotlight, and a share sheet action from the apps you already save from. Trace is not trying to hold your attention. It is trying to give you back the reason you saved something, on the day you need it.

Screenshots

JunkDrawer4 screens
Trace by Aura4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Trace by Aura at none against JunkDrawer's 3. Trace by Aura also leads on device support (5 vs 2). JunkDrawer's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). 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. JunkDrawer sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Trace by Aura asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for JunkDrawer against 5.0 for Trace by Aura. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

JunkDrawer ships an update every 3 days, Trace by Aura every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
JunkDrawer versus Trace by Aura: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterJunkDrawerTrace by Aura
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings12 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size17 MB41 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJaswanth ReddyKarthik Barma

Customer experience

JunkDrawer

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Trace by Aura

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

JunkDrawer

One-time3
  • Small tip$0.99
  • Medium tip$2.99
  • Large tip$9.99
None

Trace by Aura

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is JunkDrawer free?
JunkDrawer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Trace by Aura free?
Trace by Aura is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, JunkDrawer or Trace by Aura?
JunkDrawer and Trace by Aura are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do JunkDrawer or Trace by Aura have ads?
Neither JunkDrawer nor Trace by Aura shows ads.
Which is updated more often, JunkDrawer or Trace by Aura?
JunkDrawer ships an update every 3 days, and Trace by Aura every 5 days. Most recently, JunkDrawer was updated on October 28, 2026 and Trace by Aura on October 9, 2026.

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