memo Beta

memo · spaced repetition · beta

Remember what you learn, a few cards a day.

You meet a new word, or a fact in a book. You save it in memo. memo asks you about it again just before you would forget it.

Why I made it

I kept learning things, then losing them.

A new English idiom. A word in Italian. A fact from a podcast. I would look it up, think "nice", and a week later it was gone.

Spaced repetition fixes this: you see each thing again at the moment you are about to forget it, and each time it sticks for longer. The big flashcard apps can do it, but they come with a lot of settings and buttons I never used. So I built a small one for myself.

Few features, all of them useful. That is the whole idea.

The screens

A review takes seconds per card.

Read the question, tap to see the answer, then say if you got it. That's the whole session.

Review

Swipe up if you got it, down if you missed it. Each card has a short "pill" under the answer, a one-line hook to help it stick.

Summary

At the end you see when each card comes back. Things you know well wait longer. Things you missed come back later in the same session, then 10 minutes after that.

What it does

Six things, done well.

  • 01Add on the go

    Tap +, pick a category and a topic, write the question, the answer and an optional one-line pill. Done in under a minute.

  • 02Add a whole deck at once

    Studying something new? Ask an AI agent, or write a small script, to turn it into cards and send them all in one API call (up to 500 at a time). Categories and topics are matched by name, so there are no ids to look up.

    # one call, a whole deck
POST /items/batch
Authorization: Bearer mem_…

{ "items": [
  { "category": "Biology", "topic": "Genetics",
    "question": "What is a phenotype?",
    "answer": "An organism's observable traits." }
] }
  • 03Two buttons, smart dates

    You only answer "got it" or "missed". memo picks the next date with FSRS, an open scheduling method that Anki also offers, so each card comes back right before you would forget it.Every card starts 10 minutes after you add it. Intervals then grow, up to a year.

  • 04Daily reminders

    Set up to two reminder times a day. When cards are due at a reminder time, your phone gets a notification, and the daily queue brings 5, 10, 15 or 20 cards, never a wall of a hundred.

  • 05Free sessions

    Exam on Friday? Run a session on one category or one topic, weakest cards first, oldest first, or random. It counts toward the same schedule.

  • 06Works on the train

    Due cards and the topics or categories you download are kept on your phone, so you can review without a connection. Your answers sync when you are back online.

What it does not do

On purpose.

Every one of these was a choice to keep memo small.

  • No "hard" or "easy" buttons. Got it or missed is enough.
  • No shared or public decks. Your cards are yours.
  • No streaks, points or badges to keep you hooked.
  • No ads, no tracking, no analytics in the app.
  • No email or chat reminders. Just a push notification, if you turn it on.
  • No big desktop app. It is made for your phone.

How the beta works

Small groups, real use, honest feedback.

  1. Leave your email. I invite testers in small groups, so it may take a little while.

  2. memo runs in your phone's browser and you add it to your home screen. On iPhone, reminders need iOS 16.4 or newer and the home screen install. No app store needed.

  3. Use it for real, and tell me what works and what gets in the way. You sign in with Google and a passkey.

  4. When memo launches, testers hear about it first. No ads, and no selling your data.

  5. If you like it, tell one friend. That is how small apps grow.

Join the beta

Stop forgetting the good stuff.

One email when your spot is ready. That's it.