Your home, remembered.

What is Meu Cantinho?

Meu Cantinho is a home maintenance diary for your phone. It's where you log what needs attention, what's been fixed, who's responsible, and what you've spent — across all the properties in your life.

Think of it less like a ticket system and more like a journal. Your home tells a story over time. Meu Cantinho is where that story lives.

Your first 5 minutes

Demo data

When you first open Meu Cantinho, it includes a sample property called My Demo Home with 16 pre-loaded items, photos, areas, and assignees. This is so you can explore every feature immediately without setting anything up.

When you're ready to start with your own property, tap the ☰ menu → Delete demo data. This removes all sample items and photos permanently.

Capturing an issue

Capturing an issue is the central action of the app. It's designed to take under 30 seconds so you can walk through an entire property and log everything without slowing down.

The capture form

Photo tips

Photos are compressed automatically — they won't fill up your phone. Take photos in good light and get close to the issue so the detail is visible when you share.

Voice notes

Tap the microphone to record up to 30 seconds of audio. Voice notes are stored on your device alongside the item and are never uploaded.

Annotations

After taking a photo, tap the annotation icon to draw freehand strokes on the image — pick a color and line thickness, then sketch over the trouble spot. Annotations are especially useful before sharing — they highlight the exact problem area so the contractor doesn't need to guess.

Item status

Every issue moves through a status lifecycle as it progresses from noticed to resolved.

To change the status of an item, open it and tap the status chip at the top, then pick the new status.

Archiving vs. deleting

Separately from status, any item can be archived — swipe left on the item, or use the bulk toolbar, to move it out of your active lists while keeping the full history available under the Archived filter. Deleting an item is different: it is permanent, and removes the item, its photos, voice notes, and timeline from your device.

Adding updates

An update is a record of something that happened — a quote received, a repair attempted, a contractor visit, or a new photo of the problem. Each update keeps its own note, optional photo, optional voice memo, and optional cost.

Over time, an item's update timeline becomes the full story of that issue. "First noticed in March. Quoted in April. Repaired in May."

Editing or removing an update

Tap any update in the timeline to open it. From there you can edit the note or photo, or delete the update outright. Deleting an update is permanent — the entry is removed from the timeline.

Adding a cost to an update

Any update can include a cost amount. This is how you track what you've spent — log the cost when the contractor sends you the invoice, and it flows automatically into your property's financial summary.

People & assignees

Assignees are the people responsible for your issues — your husband, a handyman, a gardener, a property manager, or yourself.

You create assignees in ☰ menu → Vocabulary → People. Once created, they appear as options whenever you capture or edit an item. People are global — the same handyman or contractor can be reused across all your properties.

The People tab

The People tab (person icon in the bottom navigation) shows every assignee and their current workload: how many items they have open, how old the oldest item is, and which item is most overdue.

Tapping an assignee opens their filtered list — useful before a contractor visit when you want to share everything they need in one go.

Areas & rooms

Areas are the rooms or zones within a property — Kitchen, Bathroom, Garden, Garage, and so on. Assigning an area to an issue helps you filter by room and see the issue in context on the floor plan view.

Manage your areas in ☰ menu → Vocabulary → Areas. Each property has its own list — add, rename, or reorder areas at any time.

Tags & categories

Tags classify the type of issue — Plumbing, Electrical, Painting, Structure, Garden, and so on. They're used to group costs in the Investments view and to filter your list by category.

Meu Cantinho comes with a suggested set of tags. You can edit, add, or remove any of them in ☰ menu → Vocabulary → Tags. Tags are shared across all your properties, and an issue can have multiple tags.

Home screen

The home screen is your morning briefing. It surfaces what needs your attention today without requiring you to search or scroll through everything.

Sections on the home screen

Sections only appear when they have something to show, so the home screen stays calm. Each section displays up to 3 items with a See all → link to view the full filtered list.

The property selector

The property name and item count are shown at the top of the home screen. Tap the dropdown arrow to switch to a different property.

Header icons

The two icons next to the property name take you to the Property Detail view (building icon) and the Statistics view (chart icon), where you'll also find the Investments summary.

List view

The List tab shows all items for the current property, grouped by the date they were captured. This creates a natural "session" view — everything logged during a walkthrough appears together.

Sorting and filtering

Use the icons to the right of the search bar to sort, filter, or switch to archived items. You can filter by status, assignee, area, tag, or date range.

Search

The search bar filters by title and notes in real time, within the property you're currently viewing.

Swipe actions

Swipe left on any item to reveal quick actions: Archive and Delete.

Photo grid

Switch to the grid view using the second icon in the List header. Each item is shown as a large photo tile with its title and status. This view is best for quickly scanning what you have visually.

Floor plan view

The floor plan view lets you see your items plotted on a schematic of your property. Each area shows a count bubble indicating how many open items it contains. Tap a bubble to see items in that area.

You can upload your own floor plan image directly from the Areas view in the List tab — open the menu near the floor plan to choose an image from your gallery, take a photo of one, swap it, or remove it. Any image works — a hand-drawn sketch, a scanned blueprint, or a photo of the building's layout document.

Map view

The map view shows items pinned at the GPS coordinates captured when you logged each issue. This is most useful when you manage multiple physical locations or properties spread across a city.

GPS coordinates are captured silently when you create an item. You don't need to enable anything — they're captured automatically as long as you've granted location permission to the app.

People view

The People tab shows all your assignees and their current status. For each person you can see: total open items, how many days ago the oldest item was created, and how many items they've completed.

The oldest item for each person is shown as a preview — this is the "quiet issue that keeps getting pushed back." The terracotta color on the oldest-days counter is a gentle flag that something is aging.

Tap any person to see their filtered item list. From there you can share, bulk-update, or review their work before a contractor visit.

Managing properties

Meu Cantinho supports multiple properties — your home, your parents' house, an Airbnb rental, a school building. Each property has its own complete log, its own areas, and its own history. People you create are shared across properties — the same handyman can work on more than one.

Adding a property

Go to ☰ menu → Properties → + Add property. Give it a name and optionally an address. The name is what appears on the home screen selector.

Free plan and Pro

One property is free forever — no time limit. Adding a second property is part of Pro ($29.99/year, with your first month free). If your Pro subscription ever ends, you choose one property to keep fully editable; the rest stay on your device — complete with photos and history — but become read-only until you subscribe again.

Archiving a property

Archived properties are hidden from the home screen selector but their data is fully preserved. You can view and restore archived properties from ☰ menu → Properties.

Property Detail

Tap the building icon in the home screen header to open the Property Detail screen. This is the summary view for a single property.

Property Summary card

Shows three numbers at a glance: open items, items resolved in the last 30 days, and items due in the next 7 days.

Photos gallery

A horizontal strip of the most recent photos from all items in this property. Tap See all → to open the full photo gallery with date headers.

Notes

A freeform text field for notes about the property — landlord contact info, alarm codes, annual maintenance dates. Tap to edit.

Areas list

All areas in the property with their open item counts. Tap any area to see its filtered item list.

Investments & costs

The Investments screen shows everything you've spent on a property, organized by month and by tag. Open it from the Statistics view (chart icon in the home screen header) or from the This month card on the home screen.

Month navigation

Use the left and right arrows to browse month by month. The total for the selected month is shown prominently. Scroll down to see the individual items that incurred costs that month.

Top tags

The bar chart shows your top spending categories for the selected month — useful for spotting patterns like "I'm spending a lot on Electrical recently."

Annual total

The bottom bar shows your total investment for the calendar year (January–December) and how many items contributed to it. Tap the share icon to send a formatted summary.

Logging a cost

Costs are logged on updates, not on items directly. When you add an update (e.g., "Contractor repaired the pipe"), include the cost in the cost field. It flows into the monthly and annual totals automatically.

Sharing an issue

Tap the share icon on any item to generate a formatted brief that you can send via WhatsApp, iMessage, email, or any app on your phone.

What's included in the share

The shared summary is formatted to look professional in WhatsApp and email — no editing needed. The goal is that a contractor receives the share and has all the context they need without a follow-up call.

Annotating before sharing

Before sharing, open the item and tap the photo to annotate it — sketch a circle around the problem area, draw an arrow with a freehand stroke, or scribble a label. The annotation is embedded in the photo before it's shared.

Bulk actions

Long-press any item in the list to enter bulk selection mode. Tap additional items to select them. A selection bar appears at the bottom with these actions:

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is where you customize the options that appear when logging issues — your tags, areas, and assignees.

Access it from ☰ menu → Vocabulary.

Tags

Meu Cantinho comes with suggested tags (Plumbing, Electrical, Painting, Structure, etc.). Edit them, delete them, or add your own. Tags are shared across all your properties.

Areas

Areas are per-property. Each property can have its own room structure. Add, rename, and reorder areas from Vocabulary → Areas.

People

Create entries for everyone who might be responsible for maintenance at your properties — your husband, your handyman, your gardener, a property management company. People are shared across all properties.

App settings

App settings live under ☰ menu → Options.

Notifications

Storage & backup

All data — items, photos, voice notes, and updates — is stored locally on your iPhone. Nothing is sent to a server.

iCloud backup

Your iPhone's standard iCloud backup includes all Meu Cantinho data automatically, as long as iCloud Backup is enabled in your iPhone Settings. If you lose or replace your phone and restore from iCloud backup, Meu Cantinho and all your data will be restored.

Keeping storage light

Photos and videos are compressed automatically when you capture them, so the app stays small — a typical property with 50 items and photos uses roughly 100–150 MB. To free space, delete items you no longer need: deleting an item also removes its photos, videos, and voice notes from your device.

You can check the app's total footprint anytime in iPhone Settings → General → iPhone Storage → Meu Cantinho.

Privacy & data

Meu Cantinho is designed around a simple principle: your data is yours.

• No account is required to use the app.
• No data is collected, transmitted, or analyzed by Meu Cantinho or Paper Sparrow.
• Photos and voice notes never leave your device unless you explicitly share them.
• GPS coordinates are stored locally alongside items. They are only shared if you share an item that includes location.
• The app uses iOS Data Protection — your data is encrypted by iOS while your phone is locked.
• Deleting items or photos in the app permanently removes them from your device. There are no hidden copies.

For the complete Privacy Policy, visit meucantinho.co/privacy.

Free vs. Pro

One property is free forever — no time limit, no account, and everything the app can do. Pro exists for one reason: caring for more than one place.

Pricing

If your subscription ends

If your Pro subscription ends, your properties are never deleted. You choose one property to keep fully editable — you have a 7-day window to pick. The rest become read-only: you can still view and share all your history, photos, and updates, but you can't add new items. Subscribe again at any time to restore full access immediately.

Frequently asked questions