How to search your family's creations by voice

Imagine it's twenty years from now. The kitchen table is quiet, the fridge door is bare, and you open Little Binder and say, “Show me all of the birthday cards my children made for me when they were growing up.” Every one comes back: the crayon one with the backwards letters, the folded one with too much glitter, the one they made together the year you turned 38, each with the little voice that told you about it. That is what search is for.

Twenty years of creations, one sentence away

A family keeps hundreds of creations a year. Scrolling works for last week. For the whole of childhood you need to ask. Search understands the way you would ask a person: by child, by kind of creation, by when it was made, by how old they were, and by the words in titles and in what your child said. You don't need exact titles or special words.

Search by voice

Open the gallery. The search box sits at the top.
Tap Speak, or hold it while you talk. The first time, Little Binder asks before turning on AI assistance, which voice search needs, and says exactly what happens to your voice.
Say what you're looking for, the way you'd say it out loud. The Stop button gently pulses while it listens.
Tap Stop when you're done, or release the button if you are holding it. It also stops by itself after 12 seconds.
When live recognition is available, your words appear in the box as you speak. Otherwise, the button says “Transcribing…” after you stop, then your words appear. Tap the X on that button to cancel. Small labels underneath show what search understood: a child, a space, a date, “Only Maya”, “Not Crafts”. Tap a label to remove it.

You can always type instead. Search understands typing on your device, with AI assistance off, even without a connection. Speak stays inside the search box after a search. Speaking again replaces your words. The X to its right clears the search. Press Search or Enter on your keyboard to submit typed words. With AI assistance on, grown-up family searches also look for related meanings in saved titles and voice-note transcripts after you pause typing. Existing matches appear first, and additional creations arrive in the background without changing your selections. For example, “soccer” can find a voice note about scoring a first goal. Child mode and offline search keep using on-device matching. A small pulsing indicator and changing activity labels show when related search is still working. Reduced motion keeps this status still. Going back from a creation keeps completed related results. Choose View in gallery on a family creation to browse its place in the full chronological gallery, with nearby creations. Search by each child’s own age with “Maya and Jaxon when they were 5” or “Maya at 5 and Jaxon at 6”. A saved birthday gives the exact birthday-to-birthday range; a birth year alone gives an approximate range. If a birthday is missing, search suggests adding it in Family or using a month and year. Shared viewers can use month and year because birthdays are not shared. If a related-search batch is unavailable, other batches continue. Try again checks the unfinished batch while keeping existing matches. On Shared with you and shared albums, choose Find related creations and turn on related search to use the same meaning search on only the creations shared with you. This is your own choice, separate from speaking to search, and can be turned off in Account.

Things you can say

A child: “Maya's drawings”, “everything Jaxon made”. Creations children made together count for each of them.
A space: “cards”, “crafts”, “awards”, “recipes”, or any space your family named, like “Dinosaurs”. A card saved in another space is still found when its title says “card”.
When: “last summer”, “in December”, “2024”, “this year”, “last week”.
An age: “when Maya was 5”, “at 4 years old”. This uses the optional birthday you added for that child in Family.
Voice notes: “with a voice note”, or “without a voice note”.
Only: “just Maya's art” means art Maya made by herself, not the pieces she made with a brother or sister.
Not: “art, not crafts”, “everything except Jaxon's”, “no cards or books”.
Any words: “the dragon”, “grandma's garden”. Search looks in titles and in what your child said in their voice notes, and shows the closest matches first.

In your family gallery, choose With a reaction to find creations with love from someone you shared with. You can also type or say “show me creations with reactions” or “without a reaction”. Voice replies and album responses are separate.

Mix them freely: “Jaxon's rocket drawings from last summer with a voice note” or “just Maya's awards, not school ones”.

Names spelled your way

Speech recognition knows the usual spelling of a name, so it hears “Jackson” when your son is Jaxon. Before it listens, Little Binder tells it your children's names, and afterwards it writes a name that sounds the same the way your family spells it. Small typing slips like “Micheal” are understood too. Search is careful here: a word only becomes a name when it plainly sounds like exactly one of your children.

It learns from you

If search keeps reading a word the wrong way, like “summer” as your daughter Summer, remove that label twice and it stops. A small button lets you undo that anytime. What it learns stays on your device.

Where you can search

In the gallery, when choosing creations for an album, and in the list of creations waiting to be permanently deleted, where search only narrows the list and never deletes. People you share with can type or speak a search in Shared creations and shared albums. Names, titles, dates, and the saved words of current voice notes are searchable, including notes on active parts. Searching words loads text as needed, without downloading the recordings or full images. It searches only creations still shared with that person. Speaking follows the viewer’s own voice-search choice.

What happens to your voice

In your family, speaking a search is for grown-ups and needs AI assistance on. Your voice stays on your device when its app or browser supports private, on-device recognition. Otherwise, including Expo Go, the short recording goes to Little Binder's own servers with your children's and spaces' names, so they are spelled right, is turned into text, and is deleted right away. The text is used only to search and is not kept. Children's sessions search by typing only. You can turn AI assistance off anytime in Settings, and typed search keeps working. People you share with decide for themselves whether to speak a search on Shared with you: they are asked the first time they tap Speak, can turn it on or off in Account, and their recording is handled the same way.

Tips for the years ahead

Add each child's birthday in Family. It's optional and helps you find creations from a certain age, like “when she was 5”. Your family can change or remove the birthday any time.
Put the creation's space in when you save it, and a word or two in the title. “Card for Dad's 38th” is easy to find in 2046.
Let your child tell you about it in a voice note. Their words are searchable, and their voice is what you'll want to hear again.
Search works in all ten languages the app offers, and English always works alongside yours.