Retentive - Spaced Repetition

Retentive tells you exactly what to review and when - so the hours you study actually stick.

Organise everything you're learning into subjects, topics and items, choose a learning mode that matches your deadline (from night-before cramming to slow long-term mastery), and Retentive builds the review schedule for you. Review on time, earn points, keep your streak alive, and watch topics climb toward Mastered.

WHY SPACED REPETITION WORKS
Spaced repetition explained in one line: your brain forgets on a predictable curve, and reviewing just before you forget resets that curve and locks knowledge into long-term memory. That's the forgetting curve, and it's the whole reason rereading fails. Rereading vs active recall isn't close - recognising your own notes feels like learning but isn't. Retentive is built entirely around retrieval practice and this spaced repetition technique: the right reviews at the right time, nothing else.

NOT ANOTHER FLASHCARD APP
Making flashcards takes too long, and flashcards take too long to maintain. Retentive is a study app without flashcards - no deck-building, no rewriting, no re-typing what you already wrote down. It schedules whatever you already study: lecture notes, textbook chapters, problem sets, past papers, a PDF, a video, a page number. Add an item once, point it at your own source of truth, and the schedule does the thinking. This is spaced repetition without flashcards, so you stay anchored to material you actually chose.

WAYS TO USE RETENTIVE
Lecture notes and readings, so you review before you forget instead of cramming the night before. Exam revision, so you stop asking what should I revise today - Retentive answers it every morning. Finals prep, midterms, VCE, HSC, ATAR, A levels and GCSE: set the deadline, get the schedule. Vocabulary retention for a language you're learning. Skills and techniques like boxing combinations, gym form cues, guitar chords or chess openings. Social and communication habits such as eye contact, speaking slowly, and the body language you want to become automatic. Educational YouTube videos and podcasts, so you review educational videos instead of watching and forgetting. Books, because how to remember a book you read is really just a scheduling problem. Meeting notes, work processes, onboarding docs and code patterns. And second brain review - all the notes you already wrote but never open again.

FIVE LEARNING MODES
From Ultra Cram for tomorrow's exam to Extended for knowledge you want to keep for years - each mode times its reviews differently, and you can mix modes across topics. Start a new semester on Extended, then switch a subject to Ultra Cram in exam week.

AUTOMATIC STUDY SCHEDULE
No spreadsheet, no study schedule generator, no revision timetable you'll abandon by week three. Retentive is a study schedule that rebuilds itself around what you actually reviewed and what you missed.

FOCUS TIMER AND WIDGET
Run distraction-free focus sessions on any topic, see how well you stick to them, and keep today's plan in view with the home-screen widget.

PROGRESS YOU CAN SEE
Points, levels, streaks, achievements, and a full statistics screen covering study time, review accuracy, and knowledge retention across every subject.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN
Retentive is 100% on-device. Study app, no account. No sign-up. No ads. No tracking. Works completely offline - your study data never leaves your iPhone or iPad. Spaced repetition for iPad and iPhone, synced to nothing at all.

FREE AND PRO
Start free with up to 3 subjects, 8 topics and 40 items. Retentive Pro - a single one-time purchase, no subscription - unlocks unlimited subjects, topics and items, plus custom review schedules.