If you have ever tried to gather your own medical history, you already know the problem. Pathology results sit in one portal, your GP has notes you have never seen, the specialist posted a letter to your GP rather than to you, and the discharge summary from that hospital admission four years ago exists only as a scan on an old phone. There is no single place that holds all of it, and no one whose job it is to put it together for you.
Several apps try to help. They work in genuinely different ways, and the right one depends almost entirely on what you are actually trying to do. This article compares the options an Australian can realistically use in 2026, with prices, platforms and sources you can check yourself.
Disclosure, before anything else
I founded exora, which appears in this comparison. You should read everything below with that in mind.
What I have tried to do instead of pretending to be neutral: state exactly what each app does and what it costs, link to the source for every claim, note the date I checked it, and be specific about what exora does not do. Where a competitor is better for a particular job, I have said so - and for two of the entries below, that is the honest answer for most people. Everything here was verified on 30 July 2026 against the App Store, Google Play or the publisher’s own site. If something has changed since, tell me and I will correct it.
The short answer
- You want the free government record of what your providers have uploaded: My Health Record, viewed through the 1800MEDICARE app. Start here. It is free, it is official, and from 1 July 2026 it holds considerably more than it used to.
- You want to know whether to see a doctor tonight: the healthdirect app. Not a records app at all, but it is the right tool for that question and it is free.
- You are on an iPhone and want steps, heart rate and Apple Watch data in one place: Apple Health. Note the limitation below on medical records specifically.
- You want a tidy manual logbook you type in yourself and keep on your own device: KeepTrackMed or Tidy Health PHR.
- Your records are scattered across portals, emails and a drawer, and you want one place that reads them, assembles them and keeps them yours: that is the gap exora was built for, and it is free.
1. My Health Record, via the 1800MEDICARE app
Made by: the Australian Digital Health Agency. Cost: free. Platforms: iOS and Android.
My Health Record is the national system. Every Australian has one unless they opted out before the deadline in early 2019. You view it through myGov, or through the government’s own app - which was called “my health” until it was renamed 1800MEDICARE at the start of 2026, alongside the phone service of the same name. The App Store listing still carries “(was my health)” in the title to help people find it.
The big change this year is worth understanding, because it materially improves what is in your record. Under the Modernising My Health Record (Sharing by Default) Act 2025, from 1 July 2026 most written pathology and diagnostic imaging reports authored by a pathologist or radiologist are uploaded to My Health Record by default, rather than only when someone remembers to. The written reports are included; the images themselves are not. There are documented exceptions - including if you ask your provider not to upload a particular result. (Sources: the Australian Digital Health Agency, and a plain-English provider summary from South Western Sydney PHN, 22 June 2026.)
One practical thing to know, because it surprises people: results do not all appear the instant they exist. Since mid-October 2025, most pathology reports - blood and urine tests - are viewable as soon as they are uploaded, but anatomical pathology, cytopathology and genetic testing are held for five days first, reduced from the seven days that previously applied to everything. Imaging changed in February 2026: x-ray reports for limbs appear immediately, while CT, MRI, PET, ultrasound and other scans are viewable after five days. (Sources: the Digital Health Agency’s consumer fact sheet Your pathology and radiology reports in My Health Record, version 3.0 of 18 June 2026, and its Better and Faster Access program page; summarised for clinicians by South Western Sydney PHN on 8 October 2025.)
If you hit one of those waits, do not read anything into it. The Agency’s own fact sheet is blunt about why: “If access to a result is delayed this doesn’t mean there is anything wrong. Some results won’t be available for 5 days after they are uploaded, this is because of the type of test, not the result.” The delay is set by the category of test, before anyone has looked at your result. Meanwhile your results still go directly to the GP or specialist who ordered them, so if you want to know sooner, ask them.
If you have not looked at your My Health Record in a couple of years, look again. It is probably fuller than you remember.
What it is genuinely good at: it is free, it is official, providers can see it, and it now receives lab and imaging reports automatically. Nothing else on this list has that.
Where it stops: it holds what providers upload, which means it generally does not contain anything from before you had a record, anything from a provider who does not participate, or anything from overseas. You can add some things yourself - personal health notes and a personal health summary among them - but it is not built for you to drop in the twenty PDFs a specialist’s rooms emailed you and have the system make sense of them. It is a repository, not an organiser.
2. The healthdirect app
Made by: Healthdirect Australia, a government-funded service. Cost: free. Platforms: iOS and Android.
Included here because it comes up constantly in searches for health apps, and because it is excellent - just at a different job. The healthdirect app is a symptom checker and a service finder. It helps you work out whether to seek urgent help, see a GP, or manage something at home; it finds nearby services and lets you book; and it has reference information on close to 10,000 registered Australian medicines. It can also connect to your My Health Record.
What it is genuinely good at: the “should I be worried about this, right now” question, from a source that is not a random forum. It is the best free thing in the country for that.
Where it stops: it is not a personal health record. It does not store your documents or build a history for you.
3. Apple Health
Made by: Apple. Cost: free, built into iPhone. Platforms: iOS.
Apple Health is very good at what most people use it for: steps, sleep, heart rate, workouts, cycle tracking, and anything an Apple Watch or a connected device sends it. If you want your day-to-day body data in one place, it is already on your phone and it is free.
There is an important limitation for the specific job this article is about, and it is one people are frequently surprised by. Apple’s Health Records feature - the one that connects to a hospital or clinic account and downloads your actual clinical records into the Health app - is not available in Australia. Apple’s own feature-availability page lists “Health: Download Health Records to iPhone” for Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States only, checked 30 July 2026. That is Apple’s statement, not my characterisation, and it may well change - but as things stand today, an Australian iPhone cannot pull clinical records from an Australian hospital into Apple Health.
What it is genuinely good at: fitness, vitals and device data. Deeply integrated, free, private, and nothing else comes close on Apple hardware.
Where it stops: in Australia, it is not a medical records app. You can store some things manually, but the record-connection feature that makes it one in the US is not offered here.
4. KeepTrackMed
Made by: Keep Track Solutions Ltd. Cost: subscription, from USD $9.99 a year. Platforms: iOS, Android and web.
KeepTrackMed is a structured manual logbook, and a thorough one. You can track allergies, appointments, blood pressure, conditions, family history, height and weight, operations and procedures, medications and supplements, symptoms, test results and vaccinations, with reminders. It handles multiple family members, and pets.
Pricing, from the publisher’s own pricing page on 30 July 2026: LITE is USD $9.99 a year and covers up to 5 family members; PRO is USD $39.99 a year or USD $3.99 a month, covers up to 10 family members, and is the tier that includes attaching files and photos and using the web version. Free trials are offered on each plan.
Two things worth knowing. First, entry is manual - you type your information in; the app does not read a pathology PDF and fill itself out. Second, the publisher states in its FAQ that “the data you enter isn’t sent anywhere”, which is a real privacy advantage and also means it is on you to have a backup.
What it is genuinely good at: disciplined, structured self-tracking across a whole family, with a properly designed set of categories rather than a notes app.
Where it stops: the typing is yours to do, file attachments need the higher tier, and prices are in US dollars.
5. Tidy Health PHR
Made by: HealthBook LLC (United States). Cost: free with in-app purchases. Platforms: iOS.
Tidy Health is a free personal health record for iPhone and iPad, available on the Australian App Store, that covers conditions, medications, visits, tests, documents, journals and your care team. Its publisher describes a deliberately broad scope - supplements, biomarkers, mental health and preventive health alongside the conventional clinical categories - and states that data is kept on your own devices rather than in a third-party cloud, with the line “you own your own data - and keep it forever - even if Tidy Health goes away someday”. There is an AI feature, marketed as giving answers based on your own record.
The Australian App Store listing, checked 30 July 2026, shows the app as free with in-app purchases at $2.99 monthly and $24.99 annually, most recently updated in May 2026.
What it is genuinely good at: a well-thought-out, free, private, on-device personal health record with an unusually generous view of what belongs in one.
Where it stops: iPhone and iPad only, so it is a dead end if anyone in your household is on Android. It is a US product, so nothing is tailored to Australian systems, terminology or law.
6. exora
Made by: Exora Health Pty Ltd (Australia). Cost: free. Platforms: iOS, Android and web.
This is mine, so treat the description as a claim to check rather than a verdict.
exora starts from a different assumption to everything above: that you already have the documents, and the hard part is making sense of them. You upload medical documents - pathology results, discharge summaries, specialist letters, imaging reports, prescriptions, immunisation records, as PDFs or photos - and an AI pipeline reads them and extracts the clinical content: conditions, medications, vitals, lab results, procedures, allergies and immunisations. Those get organised into one searchable record with a timeline, so results from different labs sit on the same trend line and medications from different providers resolve to the same list.
The part I would judge it on is the receipts. Every fact in your record links back to the exact page and text in the source document it came from, and when you ask a question in the chat, the answer cites the document it drew on. AI gets things wrong. An AI health record that cannot show its working is not one you should trust, so we made checking a tap away rather than an afterthought.
Other things it does: profiles for children, ageing parents or anyone you care for, all under one account; sharing specific records with a doctor, specialist, family member or carer, with time limits and the ability to revoke access; and exora Scribe, which records a consultation - with everyone’s consent, which the app asks you to confirm - and turns it into a transcript, a plain-language summary and a list of next steps.
Data is stored in Sydney and stays under Australian jurisdiction, encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit. Health data is never used to train AI models. Delete your account and everything goes within 30 days. The detail is on the security page.
Where it stops, honestly:
- No direct My Health Record connection yet. We are working with Services Australia on one. Today you download your records from My Health Record and upload them, which works but is a manual step.
- It cannot conjure documents you do not have. If your records are still sitting with a clinic, you have to request them first. You have a legal right to them - here is how - but that part is on you.
- It is young. Open signup began in July 2026. The apps above have years on us.
- It is not medical advice. exora organises and presents your health information. It does not diagnose, and it does not tell you what to do. Talk to a clinician for that.
What it is genuinely good at: turning a mess of existing documents into a record you can read, search, check and share - built for Australia, and free.
Hospital patient portals: a different thing entirely
There is a category I have deliberately kept out of the list above, and it is the one that best explains why any of this is a problem: the hospital patient portal.
If you are treated at a major hospital, you may well have access to one. In Melbourne’s Parkville precinct it is Health Hub. Its App Store listing describes it plainly: “The Parkville Health Hub app makes it easier for you to see, understand and manage important information about your care and treatment at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Women’s Hospital and the Royal Children’s Hospital.” It is free, it launched across the precinct in 2020, and according to its own FAQ it shows “upcoming appointments, medications, information about your hospital visits, some test results, allergies and details of your existing problems and diagnoses”, along with visit notes and the ability to request prescription refills.
These portals are not in the comparison above because they are not consumer apps. You cannot choose one. You get access because a particular health service treats you, and the health service runs it. Ranking it against KeepTrackMed would be a category error.
They are also, by the accounts of the people who use them, very good. Peter Mac and the Royal Melbourne Hospital published the results of a January 2024 patient technology survey with 2,823 responses: 97 per cent of patients or carers said the technology was either helpful or very helpful, 90 per cent would recommend it to other patients, 87 per cent found it easy to use, and 86 per cent said it encouraged them to participate more fully in their healthcare. Satisfaction was highest in the over-65s. Those are strong numbers and they are the hospitals’ own, published August 2024. If you are a Peter Mac patient, use Health Hub. It is the live, authoritative view of your care there, and nothing in this article is a substitute for it.
My argument is not about quality. It is about scope, and the scope is stated in the product’s own description: your care and treatment at those hospitals. That is not a shortcoming. It is what a hospital portal is for, and it is the correct design for the job it does. A portal is also, in its own words, distinct from the national system - the Health Hub FAQ says of My Health Record that “they are separate and different systems”, while noting that “some of your hospital information is sent to My Health Record which is why you may see the same information in both systems”.
Here is the structural problem with portals as a way to hold your health history, and it applies to the model generally rather than to any particular one. A portal is bounded by an institution. Your health is not. Over a lifetime you will be treated by a GP practice, a couple of hospital networks, private specialists in their own rooms, one or two pathology companies, an imaging centre, a physiotherapist, a dentist, and whoever was on that night in a town you were only passing through. Each of those that has a portal has a different one, with a different login. Most have none at all. And what appears in any of them is, again in Health Hub’s own words, “information your Health Service, doctor or clinician have agreed to share” - which is the right clinical decision to leave with clinicians, and also means the portal was never designed to be your complete personal archive.
So the record is excellent while you are inside one institution, and it stops at the boundary. Move interstate, change health services, finish treatment, or simply see somebody privately, and that care lives somewhere else entirely. Twenty years later, the job of assembling the whole picture still falls to you.
That gap is the reason exora exists. It does not replace a portal and it cannot log into one - what it can do is hold what you take out of them, alongside everything from every other provider, in one place that belongs to you rather than to an institution. Use the portal for your care at that hospital. Keep your own copy of the whole story.
So which one should you use?
Most people should use more than one, because these tools do not really compete - they cover different parts of the same problem.
Start with My Health Record. It is free, it is yours already, and since 1 July 2026 it collects lab and imaging reports automatically. There is no argument for skipping it.
Add the healthdirect app if you want a trustworthy answer to “is this serious” without a search-engine spiral at midnight.
If a hospital treating you offers a patient portal, use it. It is the most accurate view of your care at that hospital, and it is free. Just do not mistake it for your whole record.
If your health data is mostly fitness and vitals, Apple Health already does the job on an iPhone, and does it well.
If what you want is a disciplined logbook you fill in yourself - a carer tracking someone else’s medications and appointments, say - KeepTrackMed and Tidy Health PHR are both credible. Tidy Health is free and iPhone-only; KeepTrackMed is paid and works across iOS, Android and web.
If your actual problem is that nothing holds all of it - a folder of PDFs, a shoebox of paper, results sitting in three different portals, twelve years nobody has ever assembled - that is what exora is for. It is built to take in what the others hand you and make a single record out of it: the reports you download from My Health Record, the letters a specialist emails you, the discharge summary from a hospital you will never be treated at again, the fitness data already on your phone. It reads them rather than asking you to retype them, every line stays traceable to the page it came from, and the record that results is yours - to read, to check, to share a slice of with a clinician, and to take with you when you move on. It is free to try.
How this comparison was put together
Every app here was verified on 30 July 2026 against the Australian App Store, Google Play or the publisher’s own website, and every factual claim links to its source. Prices are as listed on that date and change without notice; where a publisher quotes US dollars, I have said so.
I have deliberately left out several apps that appear in AI-generated “best health record app” lists but that I could not verify as real, currently available products in Australia. If an app is named in a list like this, you should be able to open its store listing and see it. Where I could not, I left it out rather than pad the count.
I have also avoided asserting that any app lacks a feature unless the publisher says so, or unless it is plainly absent from the product. Absence of a documented feature is not evidence a product does not have it.
That standard is stricter again in the section on hospital patient portals, because it names real public hospitals and the software their patients rely on. Every statement there about Health Hub specifically is quoted from Health Hub’s own FAQ, its App Store listing, or the hospitals’ own published survey results, each linked. Where I make a point about how portals work as a category, it is attributed to no one in particular, because it is a characteristic of the model rather than a criticism of any implementation of it.
If I have got something wrong about your app or your portal, I would genuinely like to fix it - contact page.
This article is general information about software, not medical advice. It does not describe or recommend any treatment. Talk to a qualified health professional about your health. Prices, availability and features were correct on 30 July 2026 and are sourced inline; this page will be updated as they change.
