Adding Moments

A moment is a short observation you attach to a person. The pottery class she just started. The move he is nervous about. The book she said changed her year. One or two sentences is all it takes, and you will be glad you wrote it down the next time you talk.

Moments are the heart of Kinu. They turn the little things you would normally forget into something you can hold onto and bring with you when it matters.

How to add a moment

Open the person's profile

Tap the person you want to add a moment to. If you have not added them yet, start with Adding Your First Person.

Tap Add moment

You will find it on their profile.

Write what you noticed

A title is optional. The note itself can be a single line. Write it the way you would say it out loud.

Add anything else you need (all optional)

Set the date it happened, record a voice note, set a reminder to follow up, or mark the moment private. More on each of these below.

Save

That's it.

There is no pressure to write something perfect. The small things are often the most meaningful, and a half-sentence you actually capture beats the eloquent note you never get around to.

Capture moments right after they happen. The best time to write one is while the conversation is still fresh. Even a single sentence is enough.

What to capture

Moments work best when they are brief and specific. A few examples:

"She mentioned she's learning pottery and loves it"
"He seemed stressed about the move"
"His daughter started kindergarten this week"
"She recommended that book about grief"
"We talked about the trip to Portugal. He lit up"

You do not need to wait for big events. The most meaningful moments are usually the easy-to-forget ones: the offhand comment, the quiet observation, the thing that made you smile.

Moment types

Every moment can have a type, which makes it easier to organize and revisit later.

Type	When to use it
Moment	The default. General observations, things you noticed.
Updates	Changes in their life, news, progress on something.
Note	Something you want to jot down for context.
Custom types	Create your own to match how you think. "Recommendation," "Inside joke," anything that fits.

Types are optional. If none of them feel right, Moment works just fine.

Add a voice note

Sometimes it is easier to say it than type it. You can record a short voice note instead of, or alongside, the text of a moment. Tap the microphone while adding a moment, speak, and stop when you are done. Recordings are kept brief on purpose, so a voice note is a quick aside rather than a long monologue.

Voice notes are free, on every plan. They stay on your device and are never uploaded, even if you use sync.

Set the date a moment happened

By default a moment is dated today, which is right most of the time. If you are catching up on something from last week or noting a memory from years ago, tap the calendar and pick the day it actually happened. This keeps a person's timeline honest, so what you read back reflects when things really took place.

Set a reminder on a moment

If someone mentions something coming up, like a job interview next week, a trip in March, or a doctor's appointment, you can set a reminder on the moment. Kinu will bring it back to you at the right time so you can follow up naturally.

When you set a reminder, you can choose a simple window:

Option	What it means
Tomorrow	The next day.
Next week	About a week out.
In a month	About a month out.
In a quarter	About three months out.
In a year	A year from now, good for annual check-ins.
Someday	A gentle, no-fixed-date note to yourself.

Reminders arrive at the single preferred time you choose in settings, and Kinu shifts them out of your quiet hours so nothing buzzes in the middle of the night. The goal is a calm heads-up, never a stream of notifications. You can learn more in Important Dates.

Keep a moment private

Most moments are meant to come back to you when you reconnect with someone. But some are just for you. When you are adding a moment, you can mark it private with the lock toggle. A private moment is held to the same promise as a standalone Private Note: it is never processed, never analyzed, and never brought back to you unexpectedly.

If you know from the start that something should stay quiet, a Private Note is the dedicated place for it. Use a private note for personal reflections, sensitive context, or anything you would only write in a journal.

A quick way to decide. Ask yourself: would I want this to come back to me when I am about to reach out to this person? If yes, it's a moment. If no, mark it private or use a private note.

How moments come back to you

Moments are not just filed away. When you are about to reach out to someone, Kinu gently brings back what you have noted about them, so you can pick up where you left off.

It is the difference between "Hey, how are you?" and "Hey, how's the pottery going? Did you finish that vase?"

That kind of thoughtfulness does not require a better memory. It just requires a place to put the things worth remembering.

Privacy

Moments are stored locally on your device first, so the app works whether or not you are online. Kinu does not access the content of your moments as part of running the app, and nothing in a moment is used for advertising or shared with anyone.

If you have Kinu Plus and turn on sync, your moments are encrypted on your device before they are uploaded and stay encrypted in transit and at rest. Photos and voice notes are the exception: they always stay on your device and are never uploaded. To understand exactly what is and is not visible to us, see What we can and can't see and Sync explained.

Moments are included on the free plan for all of your people. You can record as many as you like.