Nostalgia has been one of the dominant themes of 2025, from AI-generated scenes of the good ol’ days to the resurgence of analog hobbies.
Retro, a friends-only photo journal, recently launched a new feature which taps into this mindset, turning your camera roll into a personal time machine.
The Rewind feature, launched this week, resurfaces camera roll memories from this time last year. These are private to you unless you choose to share with others.
“People are taking more photos than ever but they’re actually doing less with them. It’s almost as if those photos go into the ether,” Nathan Sharp, co-founder and CEO of Retro, tells Fast Company.
“We built Retro to change that. Our mission is to bring friends closer and help you appreciate the important moments in life. The Rewind feature does that by surfacing forgotten photos and making it easy to share memories with the people who matter most,” Sharp adds.
On the app, Rewind can be launched from the end of the row of shared photos, or from the middle tab in the bottom navigation bar on the app. Users have the option to share or send the photos to a friend, or hide those they’d rather not see. There’s also a “dice” icon, which takes users to a random memory when tapped.
The idea of dusting off old photo albums is nothing new. Facebook’s “On This Day” feature performs a similar function, while Apple Photos has been known to make emotional slideshows of ephemera in its camera roll or surprise you with long-forgotten photos of an ex.
“It’s not the solo nostalgia you get from apps built to store or manage photos. It’s also not the same as social platforms that prioritize links and news over friends’ content,” says Sharp. “That’s the difference: we’re building for genuine connection with real friends, not algorithms, likes, or audience growth.”
Sharp, who previously spent over six years at Meta, founded the photo-sharing startup with Ryan Olson, Retro’s CTO, in 2022. Now with roughly a million users, Retro just hit #1 in photo apps in 12 countries, is the #1 overall app in 6 countries (including Germany, Austria, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland) above Instagram, and ChatGPT, and is climbing fast in the US. It was also selected as a finalist for Apple’s 2025 Cultural Impact Award.
The app’s main function is sharing unfiltered photos of what’s happening during your week with a private group of friends, or in shared albums. No public likes, algorithms-induced doomscrolling, or pressure to curate an aesthetic “photo dump”.
A wider pushback against performativity and, in turn, surveillance culture, has internet users turning to online spaces and apps that exist beyond influencer culture, social clout and e-commerce. Here, the internet is restored to its original purpose: facilitating moments of authentic connection both ad-free and slop-free.
“Gen Z is actively looking for an alternative to algorithmic feeds dominated by influencers and brands,” says Sharp. “We see social moving toward digital sanctuaries where connection is easy and authentic, not performative. That’s what we’re building.”
