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 ARM, then film like normal
Tap ARM and shoot with the iPhone's own Camera app. Every horizontal clip lands on the tape while ARM 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.
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.
Weeks apart. Still one order.
A family tape doesn't fill up in one sitting. It fills over weeks, from phones that are never in the same room.
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.
Whose space it uses, and what stays
The honest version of "will we still have this," in two numbers.
Free, on the tape's owner
Every clip the family adds counts against the owner's shelf, never a collaborator's. Once a tape is developed, it only counts its finished film, and a film is usually smaller than the footage it came from, so developing tends to free up room. Paid plans with more room are coming.
How long raw clips wait, if a tape goes quiet
After developing, the clips behind a film are cleared if nobody touches the tape for 30 days. The film itself is never part of that. For anything you can't risk losing, download a copy of the film to your Camera Roll.
When the shelf is full, nothing is deleted, ever. New clips and Develop just wait until the owner clears some room. More on how storage works.
Can I keep family video off social media entirely?
There is no feed. There is no discovery. There are no public profiles, no followers, no likes, no algorithm, and no mechanism by which a stranger could arrive at a tape of your child. Nothing is ever posted anywhere, because there is nowhere to post it to.
The finished film shares by one unlisted link, not a public post, so nobody arrives at it by browsing or searching. Anyone who has that link can watch it, so only send it where you mean to. More on how private sharing actually works, and how it compares to a shared album or a group chat.
- Tapes are invite-only. Only the people you send the link to can film into one or see what's on it.
- Share links are unlisted. Not indexed, not searchable, not guessable. Visible only to whoever you send them to.
- Shelves can be locked. Put a film on its own shelf and hide it behind Face ID.
- Download and keep your own copy. Anyone on the tape with an account can save the film to their Camera Roll.
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.
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.
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 ARM 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.