Remember the details that matter.

The new dog's name. The coffee order they always get. The thing they were nervous about last time you spoke, that you meant to ask about. These are the small details that make someone feel known, and they are exactly the details that slip away. We remember that we care about people far more easily than we remember the specifics of their lives.

Ember is a private relationship tracker hidden inside a beautifully simple macOS journal. It exists so that the details do not have to live in your memory alone. You write about your day, mention the people who were in it, and everything you notice is kept safe, ready for the next time you see them. Over the years, it becomes a life archive of everyone who mattered.

Write your day. Mention your people.

There are no forms here, no fields for "birthday" or "spouse" or "last contacted." That kind of structure turns a friend into a database record, and it is the reason most relationship apps end up abandoned. Ember works the way you already think.

• Just write. Describe your afternoon, your phone call, your dinner. Write it the way you would in a diary, in plain words.
• Type @ to mention someone. The moment you do, that entry is linked to that person forever. The detail you just recorded, the dog, the order, the worry, is now attached to them.
• Add what makes it real. A photo from the evening, an optional pin of where you were. The markdown editor keeps the writing itself clean and unhurried.

Click a name, see everything

This is the moment Ember was built for. Before you next meet someone, you open their page, and every entry you have ever written that mentioned them is there, in order. Not a summary. Not a profile you had to maintain. The actual history, in your own words.

You scan it and it comes back. The dog is called Biscuit. They take their coffee black. Last time they were anxious about a job interview, and now you can ask how it went. This is what it means to be a better friend and a more thoughtful partner: not caring more, but remembering better. Ember does the remembering so you can do the caring.

Gentle, never nagging

A relationship tracker should help you stay close to people, but it should never turn that into pressure. Ember has no follow-up reminders and sends no notifications telling you to contact anyone.

• Tending marks the relationships you want to keep warm. When one of those people has gone quiet for a while, they resurface in your Feed, shown next to your own last words about them. There is no AI, no generated "reach out today" message, and no scolding. Just a quiet reminder of someone you were thinking of, offered without urgency.
• Rooted, Seen, and Quiet cover the rest of how relationships actually work: permanent bonds that never need tending, single meaningful encounters worth keeping, and connections you have chosen to let rest.
• Worlds keep the people from different parts of your life, work, family, college, personal, in their own color-coded spaces, so nothing feels crowded.

The details stay yours

What you notice about the people you love is deeply private, so Ember keeps all of it on your own machine. It is local-first and native to macOS, built in Swift, with no account and no server, and it works fully offline. Your entries sync only through your own iCloud, and only if you turn that on. There is no AI reading a single word you write, and your entry content is strictly blocked from leaving your device.

Everything is saved in an open JSON archive you can export at any time. The core journal is free forever and never expires. Ember Plus is an optional upgrade adding private iCloud sync and the full theme catalogue.