Hi, I'm Julie

What Opalo is

Opalo is a private iPhone app with two halves. Send photos and videos to your closest friends. Keep your own moments in a private photo journal. Both sides are private by design, and the app is free.

Send a moment to one person or a small group. They see it once, then it's gone. Keep the rest in journals only you can see, or share a journal with a few people who were there. Photos, videos and voice notes, filed by date, so nothing gets lost in a camera roll.

There is no feed, no followers, no algorithm and no ads. Opalo is a sending app, not a posting app: nothing you send is posted anywhere, and nobody is building an audience.

Opalo is on the App Store, free, for iPhone on iOS 26.2 or later. Android isn't available yet.

Why Opalo exists

Life's temporary moments deserve to be shared with permanent people. I got tired of apps that turned sharing into performing. Every platform I used wanted me to build an audience, chase metrics, or curate some highlight reel for strangers. At some point I thought: what if I just built the app I actually wanted?

So I did. No team, no investors, no pitch deck. Just me and every tool I could get my hands on, building a space where sharing a moment with the people you care about doesn't come with a like count attached.

How we got here

• The idea Started as a weekend project called "Innorcircle". Ugly name, good instinct
• First prototype A camera that opened straight to your closest friends. No feed, no discover page
• The pivot Added journals, voice notes and view-once media. It became a proper photo and video journal for your inner circle
• The rebrand Innorcircle became Opalo. Named after opal: rare, layered, different depending on how you look at it
• Now Live on the App Store since August 2026. Still just me, still building

What this app stands for

• 🔒 Private by default. No public profiles, no algorithmic feeds, no strangers. Your moments go to the people you choose.
• 🚫 No attention games. No likes, no view counts, no dark patterns pulling you back in. Use Opalo when you want to, not when it wants you to.
• 🪟 Transparent by nature. One person built this. I'd rather be upfront about what Opalo is and where it's going than pretend to be a 50-person startup.
• 🙅‍♀️ Your data isn't the product. No ads, no data selling, no tracking for profit. If it costs money to run, I'll ask you directly.

On trust and security

Let me address the elephant in the room: Opalo is built by one person. That's unusual for an app handling your private moments, and I get why it might give you pause.

Here's what I can tell you: your data sits on Google Cloud infrastructure, the same systems used by apps with millions of users. I don't sell your data, I don't run ads, and there is no business model that depends on harvesting your information. View-once media is actually deleted, not just hidden. Account deletion means deletion. Your personal journal lives on your phone and is backed up to your own iCloud, where I can't see it. Shared journals live on our servers so the people in them can see them.

I've treated security as a first-class priority from day one, using every best practice recommended by Apple and Google. But I also won't insult your intelligence by claiming a one-person operation has the same resources as a large company. What I can promise is that I treat your data the way I'd want mine treated, and that as Opalo grows, bringing on dedicated security expertise is at the top of the list.

The full details are in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Opalo is free to use, at your discretion.

Questions people ask

• Is Opalo free?

  Yes, with no ads and no in-app purchases. More on the FAQ.

• Who can see what I send?

  Only the person or small group you sent it to. More on the FAQ.

• Can they screenshot it?

  Nothing on an iPhone can stop that, and I say so plainly. More on the FAQ.

• Is Opalo on Android?

  Not yet. Leave your email and tick Android to hear the day it lands. More on the FAQ.

Everything else, from replay windows to what happens when you delete your account, is on the FAQ.

Keep Opalo independent

Opalo has no investors and no ads. Your support keeps it that way, and gets us closer to hiring a developer with dedicated security experience. Every contribution goes directly to servers, development, and keeping this thing free.