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.
Setting it up is the same as any tape: everyone films sideways with REC on, and anything already on a phone, the recital you filmed before you'd even started the tape or whatever a grandparent AirDropped you, goes on with + at the moment it was recorded. What's worth filming on an ordinary day. What's particular to a family is who you put on it. A tape holds 8 people, including you:
- Both parents, first. Often a family's footage sits on two phones that never trade clips.
- The grandparent who sees the kids every week. They can join from the invite without an account. More on filming with grandparents.
- The other house. If the kids split the week between two homes, whoever films them there belongs on the same tape, as the next section explains.
- An older kid, eventually. A teenager with an iPhone films the parts of family life nobody else is invited to. Ask before their clips go on the family tape.
Already keep an iCloud Shared Album for the family? Its videos can go on the tape too, each placed by the date saved with it. And a family usually has more than one stretch going at once: a season's tape and a trip tape can run side by side.
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
When the stretch is over, anyone on the tape with an account taps Develop, and 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.
Give the family's films a shelf of their own, and a summer, a school year and the holidays end up side by side, the way the tapes used to on a shelf at home.
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.
Who sees what, inside the family
Keeping a film away from strangers is the easy part. The more delicate questions are about the people already on the tape.
- Everyone on a tape sees every clip on it. That's the point of a shared tape, and it's worth a thought before you invite someone.
- Ask a teenager before their clips go on. Anyone on the tape can delete a clip, so they get a say in what stays.
- Other people's kids. A birthday or a playdate puts friends on the tape. Ask their parents before the film goes out by link.
- A link can travel. Anyone you send it to can forward it, so share a film with other people's children in it only with people you'd show it to in person.
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.
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.
Can two households share one family tape?
Yes, and it's one of the best uses of one. Put whoever films the kids in each home on the same tape, and every clip lands at the moment it was recorded, so a week split between two houses plays back in the order it happened. Nobody has to send anybody anything, and both homes get the same film.
Should I ask before filming other people's kids?
Filming your own kid's birthday party is ordinary, and other kids will be in it. Before a film with them in it goes out by link, ask their parents: a link can be forwarded, and they should get a say in where their child's face ends up.