Your Camera Roll Isn't a Filing Cabinet

A few thoughts on why we've all become digital hoarders.

A couple of weeks back, I was doing what far too many of us seem to do with our weekends: scrolling.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I was just passing a few minutes with a coffee when someone posted that Aldi had a lovely bottle of Provence rosé back in stock. Great reviews and a decent price too.

"I'll have to remember that," I thought.

Without even thinking about it, I took a screenshot.

It's such an automatic reflex now that I barely notice I'm doing it. We screenshot recipes we'll probably never cook, restaurants we'd quite like to visit one day, holiday ideas, concert tickets, parking locations, useful emails, opening times and WhatsApp messages from friends who tell us about somewhere we've simply got to try.

It's become our way of saying to ourselves, don't worry, you've saved it.

Except, have we?

A few minutes later, curiosity got the better of me. I opened my camera roll screenshots (2,068) and started scrolling backwards.

There were shots of Chloe, the dog, a walk we'd been promising to go on. Random screenshots I'd completely forgotten taking -  insurance quote, a pair of shoes I must have decided I couldn't live without at some point, a recipe for Halloween cakes, countless newspaper articles, concert announcement and a boarding pass from last year!

Some of them I could still explain.

Many of them I couldn't.

I found myself wondering how many things I'd faithfully "saved" over the years that I'd never looked at again.

The answer, I suspect, is most of them.

The strange thing is that none of this is really our fault.

We've been taught that saving something is the same as organising it.

It isn't.

Saving is easy. Finding it six months later is the difficult bit.

And that's where screenshots become surprisingly deceptive.

When we take one, we're rarely trying to preserve the image itself. We're trying to hold on to the information inside it.

If it's a restaurant, we don't really care what the screenshot looks like. We care about remembering the name, where it is, whether it's open on a Sunday and perhaps the number to book a table.

If it's an event, it's the date and the ticket that matter.

If it's a recommendation for a bottle of rosé, I'm not interested in owning a photograph of a wine bottle. I simply want to remember which one it was the next time I'm wandering around Aldi.

The screenshot is just the envelope.

The information inside is the thing we were trying to keep.

The more I thought about it, I realised this wasn't really a screenshot problem at all. It was another example of something we see every day at Doqit: important information has a habit of becoming disconnected from the moment we actually need it.

When we started working on Quick Save, the obvious thing would have been to make it easier to save screenshots.

But that felt like solving the wrong problem.

Your phone already knows how to save pictures.

What interested us was whether it was possible to do something more useful.

What if, instead of simply storing another image, Doqit could understand what was inside it?

So now, when you Quick Save a screenshot, it doesn't just keep another copy.

It looks beyond the picture.

If you've saved a restaurant recommendation, it can recognise the venue, identify the address, pick up the opening hours and capture the information that actually matters.

A cinema ticket becomes more than an image.

An appointment confirmation becomes more than a photograph.

The information stops being trapped inside a picture and becomes something you can search for, organise and actually use.

That, for me, is the exciting part.

Not because it's clever technology - although I think it's rather clever - but because it removes one of those tiny everyday frustrations that we've all accepted as normal.

A few days after my rosé discovery, Chloe and I went to the cinema to see Moana. (Highly recommend!).

Our tickets had arrived by email earlier in the week. Normally I'd have taken a screenshot and hoped I'd remember where I'd put it. This time I'd Quick Saved it into Doqit.

Standing outside the cinema, I simply searched for "Moana".

There were the tickets.

It wasn't a dramatic moment. Nobody applauded. Life carried on exactly as before.

But as I put my phone back into my pocket, I realised something.

For years we've been measuring technology by how much more it lets us do.

Increasingly, I think we'll measure it by how little we have to think about.

Life isn't getting any simpler.

We're all managing far more information than we were ten years ago, and I don't think the answer is trying to remember more of it.

I think it's about giving ourselves better ways to keep hold of the things that matter, so they're there when we need them.

The rosé made it into my shopping trolley.

Which, if I'm honest, wasn't really the point.

The point was that, for once, I'd saved something and found it again exactly when I needed it.

It made me wonder how many things sitting in all of our camera rolls were important enough to save, but have disappeared because we never had an easy way to find them again.

Perhaps it's time we expected a little more from the way we manage the information we choose to keep.

About Doqit:

Doqit is the system households rely on to make sure nothing gets missed.

Founded by Catherine Ann Reid and built from lived experience, Doqit was created because life admin isn't difficult - it's relentless.

Every household has important documents, information to keep track of and things that need doing. The challenge isn't usually knowing what matters. It's remembering where you put it, when you need it and what needs your attention next.

Doqit brings those pieces together, helping people keep track of life's important information, so it's there when they need it.

From passports and insurance policies to school letters, medical information and everyday paperwork, Doqit helps households stay on top of the details that are easy to forget but difficult to live without.

Doqit. Nothing missed. Nothing lost.
Published: 28th July 2026