Wikipedia’s Year in Review Is Fun, Fascinating, and a Little Bit Terrifying

Hot on the heels of YouTube’s own take on Spotify Wrapped (YouTube Recap), Wikipedia’s iOS app greeted me today with a feature I hadn’t even known about, heard anyone talk about, or seen anybody post about: a year in review that sums up what types of articles most captured your attention while browsing Wikipedia in 2025.

Even though it was live for 2024 in a minimal way for iOS early this year (yes, a few weeks after New Year’s), this year it’s a regular feature, and not just on the iPhone, either. Users of the Android phone get in on the action in 2025, too.

the real rollout

Although there’s a slight, small, tiny, impossibly remote chance that I’m just obtuse and hadn’t noticed for a year, a more personal and detailed version of Wikipedia’s Year in Review went live in the iOS app around this time last year.

Turns out that it was tested as a feature for the iOS version of the app only, and as a limited-scale test in Mexico and Italy, with a wider release in the US in early 2025. But by then, I suppose, not all that many people noticed.

The personalized Year in Review only shows up if you were logged into your Wikipedia account and browsing through the iOS or Android app this year. If you only cruised Wikipedia on your browser and didn’t have an account, then you’re out of luck. Create one now, use the app instead of the browser window, and wait for next year’s Year in Review.

If you want to check out the general Year in Review that everybody sees, then you can do so here. That’s boring, though. Everybody already knows that stuff, and it doesn’t give you any insight into the real meat of what makes Year in Review interesting: a look back at what fascinated you, specifically.

To see it, open your phone’s Wikipedia app and click on your profile icon. There you’ll see Year in Review.