SMS shortcuts

Capture a moment

The default. Anything you text that isn’t a command becomes a moment in your queue.

• Plain text becomes the moment body.
• MMS photos are attached to the moment.
• Videos aren’t accepted over text — carriers transcode them beyond recognition. Add the original in the app.
• Empty messages are ignored.
• Texts from a number that isn’t on any account are ignored.

Send straight to your Journal

Start the message with private: or journal: to keep it out of loops and any shareable surface. It still lives in your queue — only you can see it.

For a mixed message, wrap a single paragraph in *asterisks* to mark just that paragraph private. The rest of the message stays shareable.

Ask your archive

Start a text with ask: or reflect: followed by a question. LifeLately searches your moments and journal entries and texts back a short answer. Nothing is saved as a moment.

• Example: ask: what did I do last weekend?
• Example: reflect: how have I been feeling about work lately?

Add a person to your People

Share a contact card from your phone’s Contacts app to LifeLately’s number. The name, email, and phone (if present) are saved into your People list. You can share multiple cards in one message — all of them get saved.

Draft an update to one person

Format: update <Name> about <topic>. The name is matched against your People, case-insensitive.

• Example: update Mom about the move
• If the name is ambiguous, LifeLately texts back a short numbered list — text the number(s) to pick.
• Person updates come back as copy-text — the preview itself is your draft to paste into wherever you want to send it.

Draft a loop to a group

Format: loop <Name(s)> about <topic> <time window>. The verbs loop, draft, and recap all do the same thing.

• One name that matches a saved group → drafts to that group.
• Multiple names → LifeLately finds the best-matching saved group, or texts back options to choose from.
• Examples:
  • loop Family about Thanksgiving past month
  • recap Josh, Lauren and Victoria about the move last 2 weeks

Time windows

Add one of these to the end of an update or loop command to control which moments are pulled in. If you don’t specify, the default is the last 14 days.

• this week
• past month or last month
• last 3 days, last 2 weeks, last 6 months (any N up to 365)
• since 2026-01-15 (ISO date)
• since thanksgiving — holiday or freeform labels work; if LifeLately can’t pin it to a date, it falls back to the default window

If a name isn’t recognized

LifeLately will text back to tell you which name(s) it doesn’t know. Add the person in the app under People — or share their contact card by text (see above) — then resend the command.

Limits and gotchas

• Replies from LifeLately never contain links. Carrier filters drop texts with links in them, so when a reply says “open the app,” that’s why.
• Group draft previews are trimmed to fit a single SMS. The full draft lives in the app.
• See the Capture address page for the number and how to save it as a contact.