Questions, answered.

A short setup flow. You sign in with Apple, then choose how you want to write: your own memoir, or a shared family memoir (start one, or join one someone invited you to). You name your memoir, pick a few starting chapters, and you are in. It takes a minute or two.

No, not to write one. If you are writing a personal memoir, you can tap Continue without an account at the start and record, write, and keep your memoir signed out. Your stories sync across your own devices using your device’s iCloud, never a Narrative Arc account.

You sign in with Apple when you publish your memoir online, so the published version is tied to you and only you can update or take it down, and when you start or join a family memoir. If you choose one of those while signed out, Narrative Arc walks you through signing in first, then picks up where you left off.

To write and keep a personal memoir on your own devices, no. You sign in with Apple when you publish your memoir to the web, so you can manage and update the live version, and when you co-author a family memoir. It uses the Apple ID on your device. To use a different one, tap Use a different Apple ID on the sign-in screen.

So it can record your voice and turn it into text. The microphone lets you record your stories out loud; speech recognition turns what you say into a written transcript, and it runs entirely on your device. Your voice is never uploaded anywhere.

Narrative Arc explains this and asks for both right before your first recording, and only if you have not already granted them.

A starting frame for your life story. We offer common chapters (Childhood, Family Traditions, Career, the people you love) already checked, plus experiences that apply to some lives and not others (Immigration, Military Service, Faith, Travel, Food, Holidays, Loss) that you turn on if they fit.

Pick the ones that feel connected. You can rename any of them, add your own, and you can always create more later. Nothing is locked: you can move stories between chapters anytime, and put any story in any chapter.

No. The chapters you pick at the start shape which prompts we suggest next, so the "try this next" prompt leans toward the parts of your life you told us matter. You can always browse every prompt category and write about anything, regardless of your chapters.

During setup you choose where your stories live: in your own private iCloud (synced across your devices), on your home Wi-Fi only (synced device to device, no cloud at all), or on this device only.

Whichever you pick, nothing ever goes to a Narrative Arc server, and your content is never analyzed. You can change this anytime in Settings.

A single memoir is one author, you, telling one story. That story can be your own life, the life of someone you love (whether they are still here or not), or simply one great story worth keeping.

A family memoir gives you up to three author seats, and each one is a full author: everyone records and writes their own stories, builds chapters, and edits the same memoir together. It is shared authorship, not a one-time guest contribution. Three siblings can tell their family's story together. A couple can each tell their own childhood, then tell the story of the life they built as one. The possibilities are endless.

No. A single memoir can be the story of someone you love, told in your words, or one great story you do not want to lose. It is your memoir to shape, whoever it is about.

On the "Whose story is this?" screen, choose Start a family memoir (you name it, set up your author profile, and get a code to share) or Join a family memoir (enter the six-character code someone gave you, then set up your author profile). Up to three authors can share a memoir.

Two ways, your choice. You can share the six-character code with them, and they enter it under "Join a family memoir." Or, if you have their email, Narrative Arc can email them an invite with a "Join the family memoir" button. They tap it on their device and, if they have the app, it opens straight into joining.

If they do not have the app yet, the page tells them they will need it and shows them the code to enter by hand once they do. You can send the email from the "invite your co-authors" step during setup, or anytime from Settings, then Family Story.

Yes. You can invite anyone to add a single story to your memoir, even if they do not use Narrative Arc. They tap your link, record their story in any web browser in their own voice (or write it), and add a photo if they like. It arrives in your memoir, credited to who told it. No account, no app, and no cost to them.

This is different from a family memoir co-author. A contributor adds one story as a guest; a co-author shares the whole memoir with you, writing and editing alongside you. You can use both.

Yes. The last setup screen offers Record my first story, which drops you straight into recording your birth story (or your family’s origins, for a family memoir). Or choose Open my memoir to land on the home dashboard.

Tap + New Story in the Stories toolbar and choose Record a story. Grant mic and speech permissions if it is the first time, then speak. Words appear as you go, the waveform pulses with your voice, and a timer tracks elapsed time. Tap Stop to save. The title is drawn from your first line. You can rename it later.

Same + New Story menu, choose Write a story. A full-screen editor opens. On macOS, Cmd+Return saves and Esc cancels. Title is drawn from the first line, the same way voice stories work.

Tap Pause to temporarily stop. The recorder safely closes its current session and starts a fresh one when you tap Resume, so anything you said before the pause is preserved even for very long pauses.

At three seconds of silence you will see a quiet Listening… indicator. At thirty seconds, a countdown card appears with a Keep recording button. At sixty seconds of continuous silence the recording auto-finalizes and saves.

Yes. Tap a story to open it. The transcript is read-only by default so accidental keystrokes can not change it. Tap Edit to make it editable (a thicker border signals it is live). Your edits auto-save. Done finishes the edit; Cancel asks before discarding.

No. Speech recognition runs on your device only. Your recordings, transcripts, and stories never leave your phone or Mac unless you explicitly export them.

On your device, in the app’s private storage. Settings, then Recording, shows the total count, total size, and oldest and newest timestamps so you always know what is there.

On your device, in the app’s private storage, separate from your phone’s photo library. Narrative Arc imports a resized copy when you attach a photo. Your originals are never moved or modified. Settings, then Photos, shows total count and size.

The next time you open Narrative Arc, it checks the current permission state. If you have revoked access, the app guides you back through the consent screen with a link straight to system Settings.

They are deleted with the story. Profile photos attached to People are stored separately and persist across story deletions.

Open the story. The Photos section sits between the Chapter and Recording cards. Tap Add photos to pick from your library, or Camera on iOS to capture new ones. Up to 20 photos per story.

Right-click a thumbnail on macOS, or long-press on iOS. The menu offers Add caption or Edit caption, Move left or Move right, and Remove photo. iOS also supports drag-and-drop reordering.

Tap any thumbnail. iOS gives you horizontal swipe between photos. macOS gives you chevron buttons plus left and right arrow keys. On both platforms, pinch or double-tap to zoom (1x to 4x) and the toolbar’s ellipsis menu offers Edit caption and Crop. Crop supports Square, 4:3, 16:9, and Freeform ratios.

From the Prompts tab, tap the ellipsis menu and choose Start from a Photo. Pick any photo from your library; Narrative Arc reads its date and shows five prompts ranked by how well they fit the photo’s date and the people you mark as being in it.

You can add a new person or write a custom prompt inline. Pick Record or Write when you are ready. The photo and tagged people auto-attach to the resulting story.

Full identity: name, category (Family, Friend, Colleague, Partner, Mentor, or other plus your own custom labels), email, phone (auto-formatted), birthday, notes, and a profile photo. Categories you type as "other" become reusable, so you can pick them from the menu next time.

Open a person and tap Edit. The profile photo row at the top offers Set or Change, which opens a picker that combines your photo library and every photo across stories this person is already tagged in.

Yes. People tab, then Import from Contacts. Pick a contact and Narrative Arc pulls the name, primary email, primary phone, birthday, and profile photo into the edit form so you can confirm before saving. Category defaults to Friend; adjust it in the form.

Five layouts: List (default, searchable), Lifelines (a horizontal timeline of when each person appeared in your stories, coming in a future update), Constellation (a single map of everyone in your memoir, where distance from the center reflects how many stories someone is in, color reflects their category, and where they sit around the ring reflects when they first appeared in your life), Cards (photo-forward grid), and Family (only people tagged as Family). Switch between them in the toolbar’s layout menu.

Open the person’s detail view, tap Edit in the toolbar, then Delete person at the bottom of the form. Deleting a person removes them from every story they appeared in but leaves the stories themselves intact.