u/Empty-Parsnip-

Starting uni comes with a surprising amount of life admin as well as starting your course (keeping up with lectures, splitting bills with housemates, trying to save money, travelling home, doing the food shop, being self-sufficient for the first time) so here are a few apps I’ve found useful that helped me to get more organised and manage my life a bit better at uni

Splitwise: an absolute lifesaver for shared houses and splitting bills with friends. Keep track of rent, groceries, takeaways, utilities etc

Microsoft Lens: really handy for turning handwritten notes, book pages or physical documents into PDFs. Especially useful if you prefer taking notes on paper but want a digital copy too

Xodo: for annotating PDFs. If your lecturers upload slides, readings and journal articles, you can highlight, write notes and organise everything without printing it all out

Too Good To Go: discounted food from restaurants, supermarkets and cafés. Very useful when you're trying to make your student budget stretch a little further

UNiDAYS: (an obvious mention) There are student discounts on everything from food and clothes to tech and subscriptions, so I’d check here before buying something

Railcard: if you regularly travel home from uni, having your Railcard available digitally makes it much easier to keep track of it when buying train tickets.

Airbrush: a photo editing app for keeping your feed up to date. useful if you’re part of a society, run a student Instagram/TikTok or just take lots of photos with friends. You can remove random people or distracting objects from photos, relight images taken in the dark, give them G7X effect, and clean up pictures before posting them

I think that's the thing I wish someone had told me before starting uni, it's not always the big things that make student life easier, it's all the little things that add up. If you're starting uni this year, save this for later, and if you've already graduated, what's one app you wish you'd discovered sooner?

I'm pretty sure most people can relate to the feeling of their phone slowly draining away their life, mindlessly scrolling or getting sucked into watching videos or playing games. I realized I'm wasting so much of my life on this device, but it's hard to kick the habit of reaching for my phone. So i decided to start using my phone more intentionally, using it more as a tool, and limiting my social media usage.

I started by putting some time-usage restraints on my social media apps. Then I download some apps to help me be more productive and get my life back on track a bit. So far it has helped me to reduce the time that just mindlessly gets wasted, I've increased my productivity, and find I'm being more intentional about my days now.

If you're interested in doing it too, some of the apps I've been using are

- One Sec: You can add a little wait time before opening apps you compulsively check, which has definitely made me think twice about opening social media.

- PDF Expert: to annotate, sign and organize PDFs without moving to your computer.

- YNAB (you need a budget): good to track where your money is going and keep on top of finances

- Mealime: choose the meals you want to make and it creates a meal plan and shopping list for you

- Strong: track gym workouts, exercises, sets, reps and progress

- Structured: visually plan your day. I like this more than a traditional to-do list when I have lots of things to fit into one day

- Airbrush: a photo editing app which comes in handy for travel photos, product photos, etc

So there's a bit of a mix but they basically all have the same purpose which is to give me something to do on my phone which is going to benefit my life, so when I have some downtime i can use those and cut down my social media usage. I'd be interested to hear any tips or stories from anyone else who is also trying to but down on social media, as it's definitely not easy

I am definitely guilty of mindlessly scrolling for far too long, so recently I have been trying to use my iPad pro more intentionally. Here are some of the apps I have been using to stay creative and crafty and make the most out of my ipad:

- Ribblr: you can find crochet and knitting patterns and follow them interactively on your iPad. A great way to find new things to make!

- Airbrush: A photo editing app, perfect if you're into photography. It's also useful for crafty people, I use it to clean up photos of finished projects, remove random objects/background clutter and make things look a little nicer before sharing them.

- PlantNet: it's not technically a craft app, but great if you’re into pressed flowers, botanical art, gardening or collecting plants. You can take a photo and find out what you’re looking at

- Coolors: This is for when you're creating and exploring colour palettes before you start your next project

- Pigment: love love this one. it's a digital colouring book with loads of different pages and realistic pencils, markers and brushes. it's perfect when you just want something easy to relax with

- Libby: a little different, this is for borrowing ebooks and magazines from your local library. you can find some crafty books on there and also just for general reading!

I would love to know if anyone has more creative/crafty iPad apps to recommend! Especially for things like sewing, embroidery, jewellery making, painting or DIY. Let's share them to help each other out because I know I'm not the only one who wants to avoid doomscrolling!

I shoot almost everything on my iPhone, and I've spent the last few weeks trying the most popular editing apps to see which ones are best in 2026. Here's my thoughts:

- Lightroom: Still my go-to for color grading. If I want to adjust tones, exposure, HSL colours, or create a consistent look across a set of photos, this is the app I open.

- Airbrush: My favorite for quick, natural edits. I mostly use it for portrait retouching (reducing redness, removing blemishes, adding a subtle tan or body glow) without making people look overly edited. I also enjoy the smart tools (object & passerby removal, Relight, AI Expand, AI Repair, and Mirror Clean), they can really help to elevate photos to another level.

- VSCO: Great if you like a more stylized look. I still really like some of the film-inspired presets, especially the Kodak, Fuji, and vintage-style filters when I want something less "perfect."

- Facetune: I don't use it as much as I used to. Personally, I find it's easier to overdo the edits, although I still think the Whiten tool is one of the better features for brightening teeth or whites in a photo when used lightly.

- Snapseed: A solid free option with the basics covered. I like tools like Healing and Selective Adjust, but compared to the others, I found myself wishing it had more variety of features and a more modern workflow.

If I could only keep two, it'd probably be Lightroom for color grading, and Airbrush for quick fixes and portraits. Are there any I've missed that you enjoy using?

I'm still a pretty small creator, and between my 9–5 and trying to upload consistently, I don't have hours to spend editing every video.

I've been trying to build a workflow that's as efficient as possible, so I thought I'd share a few apps that have helped me:

- Airbrush: I originally downloaded it for photos (good for editing thumbnails), but I've been using the video tools a lot lately. Their Video Eraser is great for removing random people or distracting objects without having to mask everything manually, and the Video Enhance has been useful for sharpening clips that came out a bit soft or compressed

- Opus Clip: Turns long-form videos into Shorts/Reels and usually does a decent job of finding the interesting moments. Saves me a ton of time

- Notion: I keep all my video ideas, upload schedule, and content calendar in one place

- Buffer: Lets you schedule post in advance. Clean interface, supports YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, etc. It's great if you want to batch your content for the week

I'm always looking for tools that cut down editing time rather than adding another step, so if you have any recommendations feel free to drop them below too. I'm sure there are some good ones I haven't discovered yet.

I feel like everyone recommends the same apps (CapCut, Canva, Lightroom, etc.), so I thought I'd share a few that I've found myself using regularly as a creator. They've either helped level up my content or made my workflow a lot easier and ended up saving me time.

- Motionleap: it adds subtle animations to photos (moving clouds, water, hair, etc.). I don't use it all the time, but it's great when I want a post to stand out

- Buffer: using this to schedule posts has taken away a lot of the stress of remembering to post, especially when I'm travelling or busy

- Airbrush: I mostly use it for portrait retouching or finishing touches. The new Relight feature has been genuinely one of their best tools to date, great for fixing lighting, adding flash etc. The Mirror Clean and Passerby Eraser are both worth mentioning too

- Liit: if you're into the travel/digicam aesthetic, this one's really fun. It adds camera metadata, timestamps, and location overlays that make photos look like they came straight out of a digital camera

I'm always on the lookout for more hidden gems, so if you have any apps that have improved your content (that aren't the usual CapCut/Canva recommendations), I'd love to hear them!

I swear the Canon G7X / early digital camera look is everywhere right now. I love the flash + slightly overexposed nightlife look, and the photos just don't look the same taken on iPhone.

I’ve tried a few ways to recreate it on my phone (editing manually, adding flash effects, increasing grain, etc.), and recently I found a relight effect in airbrush which actually does recreate the look pretty realistically.

Curious if anyone else is into this whole digicam/G7X aesthetic right now or if you guys have other editing tricks/apps for it.

I usually spend some time going through photos and manually editing people out from the background. Has anyone tried tools to instantly remove people from the background of photos? I have seen some apps (like Airbrush and others) have an AI feature to remove passersby - have you tried this type of thing or do you still prefer going in and removing people manually on photoshop?

I take way too many mirror selfies when putting outfits together and for IG etc, so over time I’ve picked up a few tips to improve my photos:

- Cleaning the phone camera lens first (everyone forgets this)

- Lowering brightness/exposure a tiny bit so outfits look richer and less washed out

- Slightly angling the mirror instead of the phone

- Removing mirror smudges digitally using airbrush mirror clean tool if I forgot to clean the mirror beforehand

do you have any tips for photographing outfits?

I’ve been trying to level up my content recently without spending way more time editing, and these are the apps and specific tools I keep going back to:

- Airbrush: 'Mirror Clean' to remove smudges in mirror selfies, 'Remove Passerby' to erase people from the background of photos, 'Relight' to adjust lighting and make my photos look like they were taken with flash

- CapCut: experimenting with text templates and fonts to create a signature style

- Canva: background eraser, frames for mockups (put images into phone/laptop frames)

What are your favorite content creation hacks for 2026?

I’ve been trying to level up my content recently without spending way more time editing, and these are the apps and specific tools I keep going back to:

- Airbrush: 'Mirror Clean' to remove smudges in mirror selfies, 'Remove Passerby' to erase people from the background of photos, 'Relight' to adjust lighting and make my photos look like they were taken with flash

- CapCut: experimenting with text templates and fonts to create a signature style

- Canva: background eraser, frames for mockups (put images into phone/laptop frames)

What are your favorite content creation hacks for 2026?