Why 'screenshot' folder is most exposing part of your phone

A multitude of near-identical wedding guest dress options. A butter bean salad recipe that some healthier, more organised and optimised version of me might one day eat for lunch. A now-outdated meme about the papal conclave. A Hinge profile so monumentally dispiriting that it needed to be recorded for sociological purposes (the “fun fact” related to his previous job... in a morgue). So, so many QR codes. These are just a few highlights of the digital junk collecting dust in the screenshot folder on my phone. Since getting a smartphone about a decade ago, I've become an inveterate screenshotter. Seen something that I might want to buy, at some distant point in the future, if I suddenly undergo a drastic change of financial circumstances? My thumb and forefinger spring to either side of my phone, ready to capture it. Spotted a hairstyle, a recipe or weird exercise that future me might try? A news story that might one day spark some groundbreaking idea? The self-help podcast episode that might change my life, but I can't quite be bothered to listen to right now? Might as well hoard it away, just in case, like an optimistic squirrel burying nuts for winter.

- Katie Rosseinsky, The Independent

And so while some people can track their whims and moods by looking back at what they've typed out in their Notes app, I can do something similar by looking back at this particular sub-folder. At least my Notes app has some semblance of order, filled with shopping lists and the books I've read. My screenshots follow zero logic; flicking through them feels a bit like taking part in some weird cognitive test. A bus timetable sits next to a Gemma Collins quote, which in turn sits next to an advert for pilates and breathwork retreat. No wonder I'm constantly running out of cloud space. And this collection of pictures feels weirdly personal, too — you could probably glean a lot about the sort of person I'd like to be from analysing all the stuff I've filed away under “just in case”. More organised. More assertive. Bet