There is something quietly wonderful about seeing what you were doing on this exact date one, three, or ten years ago. iPhone can do this partially out of the box, and a dedicated app can make it a reliable daily ritual. Here are three ways, from built-in tools to a purpose-built view.
Method 1: Check Apple Photos Memories
Open Photos and look through the featured content in Collections. Apple periodically creates memories from your library, including date-related collections. The catch is that the selection is algorithmic: Apple decides when a memory appears and which photos it includes. Some days you get a great flashback; other days there may be no date-specific memory.
Method 2: Search by date in Photos
Open Photos, tap Search, and enter a month and day, such as “August 15.” This is useful for an anniversary or occasional lookup. Results can include multiple years, but search is not designed as a focused daily review, so you may need to refine the query and repeat the process each day.
Method 3: Use a dedicated On This Day app
This is the job the Mira photo cleanup app was built for. Each day, Mira opens to today's date and shows every matching photo across past years in one grid. You can relive the day, keep what matters, and mark blurry shots, duplicates, or screenshots for deletion. Nothing is removed until you review and confirm, and your photos stay on-device.
The daily view is free. Mira Pro costs $9.99 per year and lets you jump to any date, such as your birthday across all years, last Christmas, or the day your child was born. Mira requires iOS 26 or later and is a 5.2 MB download.
Which method should you use?
If you want occasional nostalgia, Apple Photos can surprise you for free. Search works well when you already have a particular date in mind. If you want a reliable daily view of this date across every year, with a cleanup workflow built in, that is the gap Mira fills.
Mira is made by Quietly Made LLC. Download Mira on the App Store.