Everything is yours, in formats that outlive us
Export in MemoriesBox is one ZIP, built in your browser, of everything in the archive: every answer as recorded, a transcript file, the photographs, the letters and the family tree, in formats that open on any computer without our software, whether or not a subscription is running.
Facts on this page verified
What it is
Every other feature on this site depends on us existing. This one does not, which is why it is the only one that can honestly be described as permanent.
An export is a download of the whole archive: the recordings as they were made, the transcripts, the photographs and documents that were uploaded, and the chapter structure that organises them. It is not a farewell feature and it is not something you request from support. It is the ordinary state of your own material.
We are at version 0.4.1, which is pre-1.0, and we publish that number on purpose. A company at that stage asking a family to hand over a recording of their mother should expect to be asked what happens if it goes wrong. The answer is this page.
What an export contains
| What it is | What you get | In the ZIP |
|---|---|---|
| Every answer, as recorded | One audio file per answer, exactly as your browser captured it: WebM with Opus audio at the recorded sample rate, 48 kHz on almost every device. Not re-encoded | recordings/001-the-question.webm … |
| The transcripts | One plain-text file: every question in interview order, the date it was answered, the transcript beneath it | transcripts.txt |
| Photographs and videos | The originals at full resolution, plus any voice note recorded on a photograph | photos/ |
| Letters to your family | One text file per letter, with any recording attached | letters/ |
| The family tree | Every person you added, as text | family-tree.txt |
| An index | Opens in any browser, offline, and lists all of the above | index.html |
| The chapter structure | The interview's own 21 chapters are the structure; the transcript file and the index list every answer under its question in interview order. There is no separate structure file | — |
| The voice model and the digital self | Not included, for anyone. It is a running impersonation of a real person, not a document. See /trust/who-owns-a-voice-clone | — |
The ZIP is built in your browser, one file streamed at a time from our storage onto your own disk. Nothing is queued on our side and no link is emailed, so nothing expires: when the download finishes you hold the archive. It works for any signed-in member, checks nothing about the subscription, and can be run as often as you like. The only limit is the device: a very large archive is easier to download on a laptop than on a phone.
The last row is the one people are surprised by. A voice model is not a keepsake file. It is a running arrangement with a supplier, and it can end for reasons that have nothing to do with you. That is not a hypothetical: in 2021 OpenAI revoked Project December's model access, which ended one man's simulation of his late fiancée. The decision was taken two companies upstream of the person it affected.
What survives is the audio. That has always been the durable part.
What to do with it
- Export after a run of sessions, not once at the end. There is no reason to wait for a finished story.
- Put a copy somewhere that is not the same building as the first copy. A second drive at a sibling's house is a better archive strategy than any company's promise.
- Tell one other person in the family where it is. An archive nobody knows about is not an archive.
- Keep the transcripts with the audio. In fifty years a text file will be trivially readable, and it is what makes the recordings searchable by whoever inherits them.
StoryCorps has recorded more than 700,000 people since 2003 and the archive sits at the Library of Congress. That is what durability actually looks like: plain audio, held by an institution older than any software company. We are not the Library of Congress. What we can copy is the principle.
What it will not do
- It will not include the avatar. An avatar is a service, not a file. If the servers stop, the conversation stops, and that is true of every product in this category that says otherwise. See /trust/what-happens-if-we-shut-down.
- It will not include the voice model. See above. It may not be transferable at all under the vendor's terms.
- It will not guarantee a format opens in fifty years. Nobody can promise that. What we can do is tell you exactly which formats you are holding, so a future family member knows what they have.
- It will not be stored by us once it leaves. A copy on your own drive is your responsibility. That is the price of it being genuinely yours.
- It will not require a conversation. No retention call, no offer, no form asking why you are leaving.
- It will not be given to someone without a key. Export is available to key holders with that permission, not to anybody who asks. See /features/family-and-heirs.
Why this is the feature that matters
Five services in this category have closed, been discontinued, or gone dark since 2021.
| Service | What happened | When |
|---|---|---|
| StoryFile | Chapter 11, US Bankruptcy Court, White Plains NY, case 7:24-bk-22398, with $150,000 owed in customer refunds | Filed 5 May 2024 |
| Project December | OpenAI revoked model access, ending a simulation of a dead fiancée | 2021 |
| HereAfter AI | Every path on the site returns 404; iOS app last updated September 2023 | Checked 17 August 2026 |
| MyHeritage DeepStory | Discontinued by a large, profitable company | August 2025 |
| Replika | Features removed in an update; users described it as a second bereavement | February 2023 |
Read those together and the pattern is not technical failure. It is a business decision, a supplier decision, or an empty bank account. The only thing on that list a customer could have done anything about is holding their own copy.
We are not writing this to score a point off companies that mostly meant well. We are writing it because it is the reason export is built the way it is: we would rather be optional than trusted on faith.
Questions people ask
How do I export my MemoriesBox recordings?
From Settings → Privacy, at any time, without asking us. One ZIP is built in your browser with every answer as recorded, a transcript file, the photographs, the letters, the family tree and an index that opens offline.
Do I need an active subscription to export?
No. The export checks that you are signed in and nothing else. A lapsed card, a cancellation or a death never deletes a recording — it is in the Terms — and a subscription only pays for adding to the archive.
Can I export the voice or the avatar?
No. The avatar is a running service and the voice model may sit with a third-party vendor under terms that do not allow transfer. The audio and transcripts are the durable part, and they are what an export contains.
What happens to my export if MemoriesBox shuts down?
Nothing. It is a folder of ordinary files on your own drive, and it needs no account, no company and no permission to play. That is the entire point of it.
Related: What MemoriesBox does · Take everything with you, whenever you like · What happens if we shut down · Who gets a key · A life, in chapters · Where your recordings live
The exit exists before the entrance. If that is the reassurance you needed, start here. $139 a year, first 14 days free, cancel anytime.