VideoBro / Family
Ordinary days, on one tape, filmed by whoever's there.
Whoever's holding a phone films into the same tape. It comes back as one film for the family to watch.
Free on iPhone, with 2 GB to start. No trial, no card.
One tape per stretch of ordinary life
Not a whole childhood on one tape. A season, a summer, the holidays, whatever stretch you're actually in.
Tap New Tape at the start of it and name it plainly, the season, the term, the trip. Whoever's around films into that same tape from their own phone, for as long as the stretch lasts, and you start a second tape when the first one fills. Covering a whole year instead of one stretch is its own approach, not a bigger version of this one: see how to film a year of your kid without turning it into a production.
Press REC, then film like normal
Tap REC and shoot with the iPhone's own Camera app. Every horizontal clip lands on the tape while REC is on; nothing else does. Not sure what's worth pointing the phone at on an ordinary day? There's a guide for that.
Add Clips for what's already on your phone
Tap + to pull in the recital you filmed before you'd even started the tape, or whatever a grandparent AirDropped you. It drops into the tape at the moment it was actually shot, not at the end. If the family already keeps an iCloud Shared Album, you can pull its videos in too, placed by the date saved with each one: turn a family Shared Album into a film.
Invite up to 7 others (8 on the tape, including you)
Tap Collab, then Invite, and send the link to whoever's around: both parents, a grandparent who made the game. Invite links work for 7 days. A grandparent can join straight from that link and film without ever creating an account, though only account holders can invite more people, Develop, share, or download the finished film. More on filming with grandparents.
Keep more than one tape going
Run a season's tape and a trip tape at the same time; you can keep several Active Tapes running at once, as long as they fit your shelf. Each one still holds up to 2 hours of footage.
Different houses, one tape
Most family footage isn't filmed under one roof. The kids might split the week between two homes; a grandparent sees them every other Sunday; an aunt gets the school play because she's the one who could leave work early. Each of those phones ends up holding a piece of the same stretch, and none of them holds the whole of it.
Put everyone who films them on the same tape. Each household films what happens there, whenever it happens, and every clip lands at the moment it was recorded, weeks apart or not, so a Tuesday dinner at one house and a Saturday morning at the other end up in the order they actually happened. Nobody has to send anybody anything.
The places on a tape are for the people who film. Everyone else who loves those kids, the cousins, the godparents, the grandparent without an iPhone, watches the finished film from one link in any browser, with no app and no account.
Develop when the stretch ends, keep it in the Tape Cabinet
Develop
When the season's over, anyone on the tape with an account taps Develop. VideoBro turns everyone's clips, in order, into one finished film in the cloud.
Everyone's Cabinet
The film lands in the Cabinet of everyone who was on the tape at that moment, including the grandparents who joined as guests. Nobody has to text it around. More on the Tape Cabinet.
Lock a shelf
Sort films onto a shelf and hide it behind Face ID, so a season with your kid on it isn't just sitting open on a passed-around phone.
Share it further
For the relatives who weren't on the tape at all, share the film with one link. It opens in any browser, on any device, no account, no app.
Every clip the family adds counts on the tape owner's 2 GB until it's developed; after that only the film counts, and it's usually smaller than the footage it came from. For anything you can't risk losing, save a copy of the film to your Camera Roll too. How storage works.
Can family videos stay within the family?
Yes. A tape is invite-only: only the people invited to it can film into it or see what's on it, and nothing on it is public. The finished film goes out as one unlisted link rather than a post, so nobody arrives at it by browsing or searching, though anyone who has the link can watch it. On your own phone, a shelf of the kids' films can sit behind Face ID.
What "unlisted" really means, and how it compares with a shared album or the family group chat, has a guide of its own: how to share family videos privately.
What about the big one, the reunion?
A reunion might have the whole extended family on the lawn and a tape only holds eight, including whoever started it, which sounds like the wrong tool until you notice you were never going to hand the whole crowd a filming job anyway. Hand out eight instead: one phone per branch of the family, whoever's already filming everything because they can't help it. How to get everyone to actually contribute is a short guide of its own.
Point one of those eight at the person who organized the whole thing, for once, instead of only ever holding the tray. Once the day's over, anyone on the tape with an account taps Develop, and what comes back is one film instead of eight separate camera rolls scattered across however many states everyone drove in from. Reunion already over? Combining videos from multiple phones covers every way to gather what the family shot.
Questions parents ask
What if a grandparent doesn't have an iPhone?
Filming into the tape does need an iPhone, that's the one device REC and Add Clips work from. Watching doesn't: the finished film opens with one link in any browser, on any device, no account and no app, so a grandparent on Android watches the same film everyone else gets.
Can grandparents watch without the app?
Yes. A finished film opens with one link, in any browser, on any device, no account and no app. Filming into the tape does need the iPhone app, though a grandparent can join as a guest from your invite and film without ever creating an account.
How long can a tape stay open?
As long as you like while it's Active. Keep a season's tape running for weeks without developing it. The limit on a single tape is 2 hours of footage; once you're near that, start another.
Will we still have this film in years?
The finished film is what VideoBro is built to keep, and it lives in your Cabinet. For anything you can't risk losing, download a copy to your Camera Roll too, that's the surest way. The raw clips behind the film are cleared once the tape has sat 30 days with nothing added, removed or trimmed; the film itself is never touched by that.
What happens if we go over 2 GB?
Nothing is deleted. New clips and Develop just wait until the tape's owner clears room, by deleting a clip, dropping an old tape, or removing a film from the Cabinet. Paid plans with more room are coming.
What's the best way to save videos of my kids as they grow up?
Give each stretch of their life its own tape instead of one giant camera roll: a season, a school year, a summer. Invite the people who were actually around, let everyone add their own footage, and Develop it into one film that lands in your Cabinet and everyone else's who was on it, kept, not posted.
How do I keep family moments from getting lost?
Give them one home instead of scattering them across everyone's separate phones. A shared tape collects the family's footage as it's filmed, in the order it happened, so a moment isn't lost just because it was on someone else's camera roll and never made it off it.