Step one
A question arrives
One a day, from a bank of 125 written questions. It starts light, deepens only as they keep going, and never asks two heavy things in a row.
A gift for the person whose stories you keep meaning to record
Give someone a year of being asked the right questions.
Storied Archive asks one gentle question a day. Someone you love answers out loud, in their own voice, and every answer is kept, transcribed and searchable for the whole family.
Free during the beta. Nothing to set up for them, no password to remember.
What you are actually giving
Not another thing that ends up in a drawer.
It asks them something every morning.
They answer out loud, and somebody hears it. No typing, no blank page, no pressure to be a writer.
It gets the whole family talking.
Everyone can listen and ask a follow up. People find out things they never knew, and it carries on at the table, not just on a phone.
It becomes a biography that writes itself.
Every answer is another page, in their own words, still growing and still here long after.
There are two ways to do this
Nobody has to be good with phones.
Plenty of people answer on their own. When that is hard, someone can sit beside them, read the question out loud and press record for them. The story still belongs to the person telling it.
How it works
A question arrives. They talk. It is kept.
Step two
They answer out loud
One tap, then talk. No typing, no blank page, no way to do it wrong. If nothing is said today, tomorrow still comes.
Step three
It becomes a biography
Each answer is recorded and transcribed into the family archive, then written up in their own words. It grows a little every time they answer.
What you end up with
A place you can ask a question and hear them answer it.
The story
Every answer, in their voice, with the words on the page
The question they were asked, the transcript to read, and the recording itself to play whenever you want to hear how they said it.
Anyone in the family can ask a follow-up from here, and it lands on the storyteller's record screen.
The archive
Ask the family a question, and get an answer out of what they actually said
Hundreds of recordings are not much use if you have to remember which one held the thing you are after. So the archive is searchable by meaning, not by keyword. Ask "how did my grandparents meet" and you do not need the words anybody happened to use.
The answer is assembled only from your family's own recordings, and it cites each story it drew from, including when two people remember the same day differently. Tap a citation and it plays the exact moment it was said.
Nothing is invented. If nobody ever said it, the archive will tell you so.
The part you are worried about
Fair questions, answered plainly.
What if they are not good with phones?
There is one screen and one button. A question appears, they press it and talk. There is no password, no menu to learn and nothing they can break.
What if they will not do it?
Most people do not want to sit down and handwrite a memoir. Most people will answer a question out loud from someone who actually wants to know. Nothing is required. Daily is there if they want it. The questions wait until they are ready.
Who else can hear this?
Only the people they choose, story by story. Nothing is public unless they decide it should be, and nothing is sold or used to sell anything.
What happens when they are gone?
They decide that now, while it is still theirs to decide. Who keeps the archive, who can hear what, and whether any story opens later on a date they pick.
Theirs to control
The storyteller decides who hears it, and when.
Audience, per story
Some things are for everyone. Some are for one grandchild. That is set on each story, and can be changed later.
Sealed until a date
A story can be sealed to open on a birthday, a wedding or a year they choose. Until then, nobody sees it.
Afterwards
They name who the archive passes to and what stays private. A decision made calmly, in advance, by the person it belongs to.
Pricing
Free while we are in beta.
Everything on this page is free to use during the beta, for as long as the beta runs.
$99 a year
Planned price after the beta. Includes two storyteller spots and the whole family listening.
$29 a year
For each additional storyteller, because a family is usually more than one.
Beta pricing is not final. If it changes, we will say so here before it does.
Community, coming soon
Some stories belong to more than one family.
A firsthand account of a day the rest of us only read about is worth more than a family archive can hold. Later, a storyteller will be able to offer a single story beyond the family. Only if they choose it, and reviewed before anyone else can hear it.
How to get it
Setting it up is easy.
Storied Archive is new, so for now it arrives through TestFlight. It takes a few minutes and you only do it once.
1
Get TestFlight.
TestFlight is Apple's free app for trying apps before they reach the App Store. Install it first. If you already have it, skip ahead.
Get TestFlight
2
Get Storied Archive.
This link opens in TestFlight. Tap Install, and Storied Archive lands on the home screen like any other app.
Get Storied Archive
3
Sign up in the app.
Open Storied Archive and enter your email. There is no password, just a one-time code we send you. Then start your family's archive and invite the people you want in it.
Coming to the App Store and Google Play.