The HereAfter AI app: what still works in August 2026, and what to do now

As of 18 August 2026, the HereAfter AI app is still listed on the Apple App Store and can still be downloaded, but the listing has not been updated since September 2023 and the company behind it is winding down. We could not find a live Google Play listing when we checked the same day, and the hereafter.ai website, including the help and FAQ pages app users lean on, now returns a page-not-found error.

So the honest status is this: the app icon survives, the company around it does not, and anyone with recordings inside should treat retrieval as this month's errand. One note on who is talking. Afterlife.ai™ is a competitor of HereAfter AI, and you should read everything here knowing that. HereAfter pioneered this category and earned its reputation, so this page sticks to what we could verify by hand, hedges where we could not, and points you to the fuller chronicle in HereAfter AI is shutting down for the story behind the status.

Is the HereAfter app still on the app stores?

On iPhone and iPad, yes. The HereAfter AI listing on the App Store was live when we checked on 18 August 2026: publisher HereAfter Inc., free to download, requiring iOS 12 or later. Apple's own listing data shows the current version, 1.103, was released on 1 September 2023. That means the app has gone almost three years without an update while the website around it went dark, which is the profile of software that is coasting, not software that is being maintained.

On Android, we could not find a live Google Play listing for HereAfter when we searched the store on the same day. We cannot prove a negative from the outside, so we will say it plainly: if the app is already installed on your Android phone it may still open, but we could not locate a store page to reinstall it from. If you find one that still resolves, treat this paragraph as out of date.

A listing that stays up is not a service that is being looked after. App stores do not remove an app because the company behind it is winding down; removal usually comes later, when a developer account lapses or the publisher pulls the listing. The gap between a company ending and a listing ending can run for months, and HereAfter's app sits in exactly that gap now.

Does the HereAfter app still work if you already have it?

We cannot verify logged-in behavior from the outside, because that would require a real account with recordings inside. Here is what we can verify, and what it implies. The hereafter.ai homepage, FAQ, and help pages all returned page-not-found errors when we checked on 18 August 2026. In July, the homepage still carried a farewell notice directing customers to support@hereafter.ai. By mid August, even that notice was gone. The public infrastructure around the app is being switched off piece by piece.

The app itself was never a self-contained keepsake. Login, syncing, the interview flow, and playback of anything not cached on the phone all depend on servers someone has to keep paying for. While those servers run, the app may behave exactly as it always did, which is what makes wind-downs so quietly dangerous: nothing warns you on the last good day. When the servers stop, the app will still install and still open, and the recordings behind the login will be out of reach. Nobody outside the company can name the week, and as far as we can find, nobody inside has published a date. How the company reached this point is covered in what happened to HereAfter AI.

An app can outlive the company behind it by months. Your family's recordings should not have to bet on that gap.

What happens to an app during a wind-down?

Wind-downs follow a rough pattern, and knowing the pattern tells you roughly where you stand on the clock. First the marketing site goes quiet or is replaced with a notice. Then the help pages and FAQs stop resolving, because the tools hosting them expire. Then the service behind the app degrades: logins fail intermittently, syncing stops, new purchases are disabled. Finally the servers are decommissioned and the store listing either lapses or is pulled. On the evidence above, HereAfter is somewhere past the middle of that sequence.

Two things about the pattern matter if your family's stories are inside. The steps are not announced, and their order is not guaranteed. A login that works today is not evidence of a login that works in October. The end state is not the app vanishing from your phone; the app usually stays installed and opens onto nothing, a door with a handle that no longer leads anywhere.

So the useful question was never quite whether the app is still available. The useful question is whether the recordings are still reachable, and that question has a deadline nobody has published. Every week of silence makes today's polite export request more important.

What should you do now if your recordings are in the app?

If you or someone in your family recorded stories with HereAfter, do these five things this week, in this order.

• Email support@hereafter.ai from the address on the HereAfter account and ask for a complete export: all raw audio in original quality, every photo, transcripts if they exist, and the question titles with recording dates so the archive keeps its shape.

• While the app still opens, make an insurance copy yourself. Play each chapter and capture the audio with your phone's built-in screen recording. The quality drops a step, but an imperfect copy in your hands beats a perfect file behind a dead login.

• Check where your subscription lives. If you subscribed through Apple, billing runs through your Apple account, so cancel in your device's subscription settings, not with HereAfter. If you subscribed on the website, watch your card statement. Either way, send the export request before you cancel, in case an active subscription makes verifying your account easier.

• When the files arrive, download them the same day and play every one, or at least spot-check the start, middle, and end. A corrupted file found now costs a follow-up email. Found in ten years, it costs the recording.

• Store three copies: two on separate drives you own, one in a cloud account you control. Keep the originals unconverted, and write one plain text file listing each recording, the question asked, and the date.

The full walkthrough, including a copy-paste email template, format advice, and what to do if support never replies, is in our guide to saving your HereAfter recordings. And if the storyteller in the account has died, those files may be the last of their voice your family will ever hold. Retrieve them first. Every other decision can wait.

Should anyone download the HereAfter app today?

No. Not because the download fails, but because recording new stories into a service that is winding down means doing real emotional work on ground that is dissolving. Interview hours are precious; some of the people answering those questions will not be able to answer them twice. New recordings belong somewhere with a future.

That needs saying without a sneer. HereAfter grew out of journalist James Vlahos's project to preserve his own father's stories, and for years the mainstream press treated the app as the reference point for preserving a parent's voice. The design held to one principle: an automated interviewer asked about childhood, family, career, and character, and every answer was stored as real recorded audio in the storyteller's own breath and timing. The company earned its standing, and its closing is a loss for the category, not a scandal to enjoy.

The method HereAfter pioneered deserves to outlive the app that pioneered it.

What should HereAfter app users use instead?

Different families used the app for different things, so the honest answer is a map, not a name. If the recordings themselves are the point, no product is required at all: retrieve the files, follow the three-copies rule above, and your archive will outlive every subscription on this page. If you want prompted storytelling that becomes a printed book, StoryWorth and Remento serve that well. If your parent tells stories best over an ordinary phone call, Storii records life stories that way. We compare the field, including the options that are not us, in our guide to alternatives to HereAfter AI and the wider rundown of the best digital legacy apps.

Afterlife AI™ is the option we build, and the difference from HereAfter is the reason we exist. Guided capture interviews you in a rhythm any HereAfter storyteller will recognize, one question at a time, and builds your Persona: a living likeness that remembers your stories and answers in your way, rather than replaying fixed files. Voice preservation is consent-based and recorded while you are alive, and Executor Lock™ freezes the record behind your Persona as a perfect snapshot at the moment you choose, so nothing about who you are drifts after death.

The build starts free: a one-time build budget of 50 memories, no card, and the free build never expires. The paid plans, Legacy at $14.99 and Eternal at $29.99 per month, are on the plans page when you want release rules and voice. If your rescued HereAfter questions are sitting in a folder, they are the finest prompt list you will ever own. Start your Persona free and answer them again, deeper, on ground you control.