“We paid $75 for it, and I thought I owned the world.”
Keep their stories close
Who do you hold dear?
Capture the people you love telling the stories you’ll always want to remember.
Their stories. Their voice. Their face.
Invite-only. Not a public social network.
Don’t just remember their stories. Remember them telling them.
HoldDear helps families keep the people they love close.
Question cards
54 questions. One phone. A lifetime of stories.
Sometimes the hardest part is knowing where to start. Pick a thoughtful question, press record, and keep the story.
What was your childhood home like?
Story idea 01How did you meet the love of your life?
Story idea 02What did you believe at 20 that you no longer believe?
Story idea 03What family tradition should never disappear?
Story idea 04What was the hardest decision you ever made?
Story idea 05What do you want your grandchildren to know?
Story idea 06Why HoldDear exists
I wish I had more recordings of her voice.
I have photos of Mom. But I’d give almost anything for more recordings of her voice — telling the stories only she could tell.
That’s a big part of why I built HoldDear.
We take thousands of photos of the people we love, but rarely think to intentionally capture their voice, their expressions, and the stories behind those photos.
HoldDear makes it simple to ask the questions, record the stories, and keep them somewhere your family can return to for years to come.
Before another Christmas passes, capture the stories that matter.
How HoldDear works.
Pick a question. Press record. Keep the story — then invite your family to experience it together.
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01 — Ask
Choose a thoughtful question
Start with a prompt that opens a conversation worth keeping.
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02 — Record
Record on a phone
Capture the conversation naturally — their face, voice, expressions, and pauses.
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03 — Preserve
Keep the original story
HoldDear securely keeps the video as the source of truth for your family archive.
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04 — Understand
Find stories more easily
Transcription and helpful organization make it easier to explore what you’ve preserved.
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05 — Share
Invite family privately
Owners and admins invite people by email so the collection stays invite-only.
When you’re done actively recording, move to Preserve and keep the archive available.
Sunday gravy
Nana · Family · 6:11
Watch
“You taste it before you write anything down. If you need a recipe, you weren’t paying attention.”
A photograph can show you who was there. A story can tell you what happened.
The joke everyone told. The recipe nobody wrote down. The reason your grandfather changed careers. The way your mother laughs halfway through a story.
Those are the details that disappear first.
Don’t just remember their stories. Remember them telling them.
Your family’s stories, in one private archive.
Record or upload video stories. Organize them by family. Watch them together — without a public feed.
Growing Up in Boston
Robert Hayes · Childhood
How We Met
Linda & Robert · Love
Christmas at Nana's
Linda Hayes · Traditions
Advice for My Grandchildren
Robert Hayes · Life Lessons
Stories can be family-visible or private to the creator. Cross-family access is blocked.
On the roadmap
More ways to find a story — coming soon.
Transcription and short summaries will help families explore what they’ve preserved. Today, the original recording remains the heart of every story.
Transcripts
Coming soon for Family and Family+.
Story summaries
Coming soon — so anyone who wasn’t in the room can still find the thread.
Story prompts
A guided prompt library is on the way to help families get started.
The original recording always remains the heart of the story.
One login. Multiple families.
Invite people by email. Everyone keeps one identity and can belong to more than one family archive — switching as needed.
Robert
43 stories
Linda
37 stories
Mom
18 stories
Dad
22 stories
You
12 stories
Children
Growing collection
- Owner
- Admin
- Member
- Viewer
This isn’t only about someday.
Families use HoldDear while everyone is still here: to hear a story again, to settle an argument about how a dish is made, to keep a joke from going missing.
- Childhood memories
- Family recipes
- Travel stories
- Military and service stories
- Career lessons
- Traditions
- Embarrassing stories
- Jokes
- Relationship stories
- Advice
- Everyday moments
The best time to preserve someone’s stories is while you’re still making new ones together.
Gift Year
Coming soon
Give HoldDear.
Give someone you hold dear a reason to tell the stories you’ll always want to remember. A year of HoldDear Family — $119 one-time.
- One year of HoldDear Family
- Private family archive
- Room for up to 10 family members
- 100 GB of storage
Gift purchase and redemption aren’t live yet. Join the list and we’ll write when it is.
Plans for recording — and for keeping.
Billing belongs to the family archive, not each relative. One subscription covers the whole family space.
Recommended
Family
$12.99 / month
or $119 / year — save $36.88
Keep recording the stories that matter.
- 100 GB storage
- Up to 10 family members
- New uploads & invitations
- Watch and keep your archive
Family+
$19.99 / month
or $189 / year — save $50.88
For larger families preserving more together.
- 250 GB storage
- Up to 25 family members
- New uploads & invitations
- Watch and keep your archive
Preserve
$4.99 / month
or $49 / year — save $10.88
Finished recording for now? Keep your family's stories safe and available.
- Keep existing stories
- Existing members stay
- No new uploads or invitations
- Watch and keep available
Preserve is a paid continuity plan — not cancellation. Creating another family creates a new archive with its own plan. Videos up to 5 GB each (MP4, MOV, WebM).
Family stories should belong to the family.
Private by design
Invite-only family spaces. No public feed, discovery directory, or “people you may know.”
You control who joins
Owners and admins invite by email. Roles — owner, admin, member, viewer — decide who can record, manage, or simply watch.
Memories aren’t held hostage
Payment problems get a 7-day grace. Cancel doesn’t instantly erase your archive. Stories leave only when someone with permission archives or deletes them.
Someone in your family has a story you’ve never heard.
Record it.