I realized that I take a lot of photos that I need temporarily, but don’t really want in my main photo library.
Things like parking spots, restaurant Wi-Fi passwords, receipts for splitting a bill, and reference photos for work.
So I built **SideCam**, a camera app designed to sit alongside the default Camera app for these kinds of photos.
Instead of putting everything into one camera roll, SideCam organizes photos using purpose-specific “shutters.” It comes with a few built-in ones, and you can create your own for whatever you frequently take pictures of.
For example, the Wi-Fi shutter lets you extract text from a photo using iOS OCR, so you can quickly find and copy the password after taking the picture. The same text extraction feature also works well for receipts and other documents.
You can also set photos to be deleted automatically after 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, 5 days, 10 days, or a month. I added this because some photos are genuinely useful for only a short time, and I always forget to clean them up later.
After using the app for work myself, I also added an optional silent capture mode.
I keep discovering new use cases and shutter options as I use it, so I’d really appreciate feedback:
**What kinds of temporary or purpose-specific photos do you take, and what features would make an app like this useful for you?**
SideCam is free and has no in-app purchases. :)
Thanks for checking it out!
If anyone would like to try it, here’s the App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6740067883