Find Later

Making a saved link recognisable

The quality of a visual library depends on the material it can retrieve from other sites. Titles, descriptions and images are inconsistent or absent across the web, and some sites make previews difficult to fetch. I designed a layered preview approach, using dedicated handlers where needed, Apple’s LinkPresentation, Open Graph data and fallbacks.

Left Every save recognisable by its cover, and the image-led detail. Right Change the cover and the page takes its colour from the new image.

When the source preview falls short, people can edit a save’s title, description, tags and cover. Covers can come from Photos or the clipboard, or be created in Image Playground. The placeholder draws on one of a set of abstract gradient prompt recipes, varied by palette, so a card becomes recognisable without pretending to depict the linked content. The card is flexible enough to carry its own meaning: every save can be edited until it’s recognisable enough to find again, even when the web supplies too little.

Edit anything in place, even generate a cover with Image Playground.

From Figma component to working interface

I designed the image-led card component myself in Figma, then carried its hierarchy into the iOS app: a prominent cover, a readable title, compact tags and actions, and a smaller treatment where the layout needs it. This was the early days of AI-assisted development, when getting UI parity from Figma to code was painstaking: translating the card faithfully into SwiftUI took many iterations with the AI coding tools of the time. The card’s underlying idea has carried through every revision since.

The Library in light and dark.

I also explored a brighter, colour-backed interface. Its colour competed with the saved images and worked against the quick scanning I wanted. The purpose of the screen is to help someone recognise and find a link again, so I chose a quieter light and dark interface that stays in the background. Covers and titles provide the signposts; the surrounding UI helps people navigate without distracting from what they saved.

Light and dark: Collections.

Organising without losing ownership

Collections let people gather links for a trip, a project or an interest and share that selection. I considered live collaborative collections, then chose to give each recipient an independent copy. People want to know what’s in their collection, and to delete or reorganise their own things without it changing when someone else edits it elsewhere. Live shared collections would also have meant keeping every edit in sync between people’s iCloud libraries, with the conflicts that brings. An independent copy keeps sharing simple and leaves each person in control of what they received. Shared items are imported into the recipient’s own library, with duplicate links merged by their canonical URL.

Left Collections, and a trip gathered from different sites. Right Actions where the card is: collection, favourite, share, and edit.

Getting information back out

The library supports search across saved content, including relative dates such as “last week”, and meets people across iOS through the Share Sheet, Spotlight, Siri and Shortcuts. iCloud keeps each person’s library in sync across their devices.

I also added CSV, JSON and Markdown export, along with import routes for bringing a library back in. What someone saves, and when, says a lot about them, so I made that data easy to take elsewhere: Markdown drops straight into a notes app such as Obsidian, JSON and CSV can be re-imported or given to an LLM as a source, and people can use their library in whatever format suits them. A library you can’t leave isn’t really yours.

Left Search, and the compact layout for long collections. Right Export as CSV, JSON or Markdown, ready for a notes app.

Preparing it for release

The work expanded beyond the core library into a free tier and Find Later Plus, with a paywall for unlimited saves and collections. I localised the app and its App Store presentation into English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese, designing the store screenshots for each language as part of the release.

I also designed and built the product’s website, getfindlater.com, using the app’s card design to show people what Find Later does before they install it. The app runs on iPad and Mac too, so its layouts had to work across those screens and inputs, not just on iPhone.

Left The website hero. Right The “Simple, on purpose” feature grid.

Refining the routes in and out

Across later revisions, I refined launch speed, collection management, widgets, system search and cover editing. Saving needs to be quick enough to do in the moment, and the same item needs to be easy to recognise when someone returns. The image-led card remains the centre of that experience.