Take everything with you, whenever you like
Everything you record with MemoriesBox downloads as one ZIP, built in your browser, whether or not a subscription is running: the audio as recorded, a transcript file, the photographs, the letters and the family tree. It needs no permission from us and no link that expires.
Facts on this page verified
The short answer
You can take your archive out at any time. Not on cancellation, not on request, not after a support conversation about why you are leaving. At any time, because a recording of your father is not leverage.
The point of export is that it makes us optional. That is uncomfortable to write on a subscription page and it is the whole argument.
What you can take out
| 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 sample rate it was recorded at (48 kHz on almost every phone and laptop). Not re-encoded, not trimmed | recordings/001-the-question.webm … |
| The transcripts | One plain-text file, every question in the order of the interview, the date it was answered, and the transcript beneath it. Answers that were never transcribed say so | transcripts.txt |
| Photographs and videos | The originals you uploaded, at full resolution. A voice note recorded on a photograph sits beside it | photos/, with -voice.webm beside a photo that has one |
| 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 | A page that opens in any browser, offline, listing everything above | index.html |
| The chapter structure | The interview's 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 exportable, by anyone, including you. The reason is on /trust/who-owns-a-voice-clone | — |
How it works matters as much as what is in it. The ZIP is built in your browser, streaming one file at a time from our storage into a file on your own machine. There is no export job queued on our side, no email with a link, and therefore no link that expires: the moment the download finishes you hold the archive. Export is available to any signed-in member at any time; it does not check whether a subscription is running, and there is no limit on how often you do it. The one practical limit is the browser itself: a multi-gigabyte archive on a phone can run out of memory, in which case a laptop finishes the job.
Why formats matter more than promises
StoryCorps has recorded more than 700,000 people since 2003, and the archive sits at the Library of Congress (storycorps.org). That is what durability looks like: ordinary audio, held by an institution older than any software company, in formats that will still open when the recording equipment is in a museum.
We are not the Library of Congress. What we can copy from them is the principle. An archive survives because the files are plain and somebody keeps a copy, not because a company promises to be around.
So the useful advice is dull. Export when you have finished a run of sessions. Put a copy on a drive that is not in the same building. Tell one other person in the family where it is. None of that depends on us.
What we can't promise
- We cannot promise a format opens in fifty years. Nobody can. We can tell you exactly which formats you are holding, so a future family member knows what they have.
- We cannot export the avatar. It is a running service and it does not fit in a folder. What survives is the audio and the transcripts. The reasoning is on /trust/what-happens-if-we-shut-down.
- We cannot promise the voice model is transferable. It may be held by a third-party vendor under terms that do not allow it to be handed over.
- We cannot store your export for you once it leaves. A copy on your own drive is your responsibility, which is the price of it being genuinely yours.
What the law says
- GDPR Article 20 gives you the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and to transmit it to another controller.
- GDPR Article 15(3) gives you the right to a copy of the personal data being processed.
- GDPR Article 12(3) requires a controller to respond without undue delay and within one month, extendable by two further months for complex requests.
Our export exists so that you never have to use any of those articles. If you would rather do it formally, write to hello@memoriesbox.org and the statutory clock applies. Primary text: Regulation (EU) 2016/679.
Questions people ask
How do I export my MemoriesBox recordings?
From your account, at any time, without asking us. You get the session audio, the transcripts, the photographs you uploaded, and a file describing the timeline.
Do I need an active subscription to export?
No. Export checks that you are signed in and nothing else. The Terms say the same thing from the other side: a lapsed card, a cancellation or a death never deletes a recording, and what a subscription pays for is adding to the archive, not keeping it.
Can I export the AI avatar itself?
No. The avatar is a service, not a file. The recordings and transcripts are the durable part, and they are what an export contains.
What format are the files in?
WebM audio with the Opus codec for every recording, exactly as captured; plain text for the transcripts, the letters and the tree; your photographs as you uploaded them; and an HTML index that opens offline. Every one of them opens on an ordinary computer without our software.
Where should I keep the exported copy?
On a drive you control, with a second copy somewhere else, and tell one other person in the family where it is. That is the whole backup strategy, and it has outlasted every company in this category so far.
Related: What happens if we shut down · Where your recordings live · Who owns a cloned voice · How the voice clone is built · Every other way to keep a voice · The full comparison table
MemoriesBox is $139 a year, hosted in the EU, first 14 days free, cancel anytime. Start here.