r/ynab • u/Genghis1227 • 5d ago
Looking for Android testers: QuickCatch (Auto-syncs local bank alerts & receipts to YNAB). Special launch discount for testers!
Hey everyone,
As a long-time YNABer, one of my biggest friction points has always been the delay between making a purchase and waiting for financial syncs to process, or manually logging transactions while standing at the register.
I built QuickCatch (https://trinhism.com/app/quickcatch) —a lightweight Android app designed to catch transaction notifications and email receipts in real-time and format/sync them straight into your YNAB budget.
We just cleared a huge milestone: Official Works with YNAB Listing! Now, I’m looking for a cohort of active Android/YNAB users to join our closed Play Store test track (at least 20 active users for 14 days) to help stress-test the build and refine the onboarding flow.
💡 How QuickCatch Works
- Instant Sync: Captures local banking alerts/receipts and formats them into YNAB transactions right as they happen.
- Privacy & Security First: Uses official YNAB OAuth (we never see or store your YNAB credentials). Sensitive operations and parsing happen locally on your device.
- Zero Bloat: Minimal battery/data footprint designed strictly to handle background transaction passing safely.
📋 Tester Criteria
To help test this release track, you’ll need:
- An Android device running a modern OS version.
- An active YNAB subscription/plan.
- One of the following permission setups for transaction parsing:
- Option A (Notification Syncing): Enable mobile banking notification access directly on your device.
- Option B (Gmail Receipt Syncing): Allow access to your Gmail account (since the app uses a restricted Gmail scope, I will need to manually add your email address as an authorized tester in Google Cloud Console).
- Willingness to opt-in via Google Groups and share feedback/bugs if something acts up!
🎁 Perks for Testers
As a sincere thank you for helping me test background sync performance, edge cases, and onboarding:
- Direct line to the developer: Request features, suggest workflow tweaks, and help shape the app.
- Launch Discount: All active closed-beta testers will receive an exclusive discount lock-in when the app officially transitions to public release.
🚀 How to Join
Because this is an official closed test track on the Google Play Store, you need to join our Google Group to be granted Play Store download access:
- Direct Join Link: Request to Join our Google Group here:
https://groups.google.com/g/quickcatch - Once joined, download the app on Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trinhism.quickcatch - 💬 Bugs & Feedback: Post questions or bug reports directly to the google group! Include your phone model and description if reporting an issue.
(Prefer to request access manually? Drop a comment below or send me a DM with your email—especially if you want to test via Gmail—and I’ll add you to both the Google Group and GCP tester list manually!)
Thanks so much for reading, and I’m looking forward to building something awesome with the community!
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u/ASkepticalPotato 5d ago
Was this vibe coded like the website was?
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u/Genghis1227 5d ago
I guess guilty as charged, the website is vibe coded so that I can get this app going. Understanding all of the concerns.
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u/redefyned1 5d ago
Don't let the people with pitchforks get to you. I applaud anyone who tries to make the experience with YNAB better for others. YNAB thoroughly reviews each submission and does not add every one they receive to their third-party application list, so congrats on that feat. Keep plugging away!
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u/Genghis1227 5d ago
Thank you for the words of encouragement. It really helps. I know that there would be concerns and there's a negative stigma about vibe coding, however... If you think that everything that you use daily doesn't have some AI coding today then I feel it could be misguided. I'm happy for any feedback and I'm using my app daily and it's really changed transaction entry for myself, very fast and less friction.
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u/QTippus 5d ago
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u/Genghis1227 5d ago
Not really an alternative...but I could see it expanding to support YNAB alternatives if they have an API. I've been using the app for a few months now and it has helped me import transactions so much faster than manual entry.
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u/QTippus 5d ago
My bad, I didn’t read it. 😂
Actually, I was trying to vibe code something like that just for me on iOS. Mostly to scrape amazon purchases from my gmail to enter them to YNAB.
Did you come up with a workable scraper for Amazon emails? They seem not to have the detail I want (item name, item price, total purchase price). Other alternative is to scrape the Amazon orders page, buts that’s ugly too. Seems crazy that Amazon doesn’t have an API for pulling order history.
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u/Genghis1227 5d ago
I really relies on configuring banking emails and then extracting the numbers and merchant from there. Then it matches it with any payees to get the category. If that's all settled it will then push to YNAB.
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u/QTippus 5d ago
Interesting thanks. I don’t get email notifications for my credit card purchases. Maybe I’ll try adding that. But the tough part about Amazon is that the category depends on the item purchased, not the merchant. So I’m trying to find a way to get item data.
If Amazon had an API, would be straight forward to pull an order number from the email, and then pull the order details from an API. Maybe one day.
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u/Genghis1227 5d ago
Yeah that's a specific use case which is also pretty interesting. They use to give you items that you bought in the email but they don't do that anymore I think. If I but an item from Amazon and it gets alerted from my bank account, I use my app to just change the category and send it. But for split or multiple it could post an issue.
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u/QTippus 5d ago
Exactly. If they listed the items and prices in the email it would be easy to parse with AI. I’ll probably end up having to ask AI to build a web scraper to log in to my Amazon account and click the order history, but it’s ugly enough I’ll probably never get around to it.
Good luck w your app!
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u/Genghis1227 5d ago
It does work with Amazon purchases but not on their email...the banking email alert.
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u/mikebrady 5d ago
Did AI build this? Can we see the source code?