StoryCorps Alternative: How to Record a Family Interview, Then Keep Asking Questions

StoryCorps is an independent US nonprofit that records conversations between two people who know and care about each other, and its free app lets you record one yourself, in the same room, on an iPhone or Android phone. With your permission, the recording joins the StoryCorps Archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, which StoryCorps calls the largest single collection of voices ever gathered (StoryCorps Help Center, 2026). For a trained facilitator, book a 40-minute session at a StoryBooth in New York City or Atlanta, aboard the touring MobileBooth, or virtually, for a suggested $50 donation (Wikipedia, 2026; StoryCorps Help Center, 2026).

The app is still maintained (Google Play lists an update on March 20, 2026) and offers ready-made questions, in-app recording and uploads of an audio file you already have. Each recording stops automatically at 45 minutes, so save a longer interview as Part I and Part II (StoryCorps Help Center, 2026). The real limit is distance: StoryCorps says you cannot call someone on your phone and record that call in the app, so a grandparent in another state needs StoryCorps Connect.

StoryCorps Connect is StoryCorps' free remote recording platform, developed in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two people join a video call in their web browsers, and the audio plus still photos taken during the call go into the StoryCorps Archive at the Library of Congress (StoryCorps, 2026). StoryCorps suggests six to eight questions over a 40-minute interview, and its Help Center lays out these steps.

1. Log in to, or create, a free account at archive.storycorps.org, which opens a new Connect interview.

2. Allow your browser to use your camera and microphone, or the recording cannot start.

3. Invite your partner by email or link; they log in and allow the same access.

4. Check that you can see and hear each other, then settle in, because a Connect interview cannot be paused.

5. Click Start Audio Recording and watch the countdown timer.

6. Click Stop Recording, then Save Interview to Archive, and add names, locations and keywords; nobody can access the interview until you do.

A Connect interview you publish is archived with the Library of Congress under every privacy setting, although StoryCorps says that collection is currently closed to the public (StoryCorps Help Center, 2026). Connect keeps no video, so record a separate video, with everyone's permission, if you want footage of Grandpa telling the story.

Most people want something StoryCorps was never built to do. StoryCorps is designed around one conversation of about 40 minutes for a national archive, while families who look elsewhere usually want a printed book, a recording that never leaves the family, or a way to keep asking questions after the interview ends. Storyworth and Remento built their businesses on the book, with a year of weekly prompts. Afterlife.ai™ is built for the third need: the storyteller builds a living AI Persona from their own memories, stories and voice, and the people they choose talk with that Persona whenever they like.

Pick one person, write six to eight questions, find a quiet room and record for about 40 minutes. The format works in the StoryCorps App, in StoryCorps Connect or with your phone's own voice recorder.

1. Pick your storyteller and an occasion. StoryCorps' Great Thanksgiving Listen, running since 2015, invites anyone 13 or older to record an elder over the holiday (WGCU, 2025).

2. Write six to eight open questions, starting with a warm-up and putting the one you care about most in the middle.

3. Choose a quiet, soft room away from the kitchen, with the TV off and every other phone on silent.

4. Test the setup. Put the phone about a foot from the storyteller on a folded towel, record 30 seconds and play it back.

5. Open with the basics: each person's name and age, the date, the place and how you know each other.

6. Ask one question at a time and follow the story. Let silences run, and keep two follow-ups ready: "What happened next?" and "How did that feel?"

7. Stop at about 40 minutes, while the storyteller still has energy.

8. Back it up the same day in two places, then decide whether it goes to the StoryCorps archive or stays private.

Do not skip step 8: StoryCorps says an app interview you save without publishing exists only on the device that recorded it (StoryCorps Help Center, 2026), so copy the file to a computer or cloud drive before you leave the house. For projects that run over several sessions, our guides on how to interview your grandparents and how to record your parents' life story go further.

Start with easy warm-ups, put the question you care about most in the middle, and save advice for the last ten minutes. StoryCorps publishes its own Great Questions list in 17 categories, from Growing Up to Military (StoryCorps, 2026), and our starter list below is written to pull out stories rather than one-word answers.

Warm-up questions

• Where did you grow up, and what did your street look like?

• What is your earliest memory?

• Who was the biggest character in your family when you were a kid?

Work and money

• What was your first job, and what did it pay?

• What is the best and the worst work decision you ever made?

• How did you pay for your first car or your first home?

Love and family

• How did you meet the love of your life?

• What surprised you most about becoming a parent?

• Which family tradition do you most want kept going, and why?

Hard times

• What was the hardest year of your life, and how did you get through it?

• What is something you changed your mind about as you got older?

Advice and the things only you know

• What do you know now that you wish you had known at 25?

• What should we always do the way you do it, from a recipe to a repair?

• What do you want your grandkids to know about you that they would never think to ask?

For the holiday table, use our Thanksgiving questions to ask family, and for a whole life, our life story questions.

StoryCorps and a phone recorder are free and capture one conversation. Storyworth and Remento charge $69 to $99 for one storyteller's year of prompts and a printed book, as of October 2026. Afterlife.ai™ is free to start and is the only option here that answers new questions on the spot, in the storyteller's own voice.

• StoryCorps App: best free way to record one in-person conversation, and the first thing most families should do.

• StoryCorps Connect: best free option for a storyteller in another state, if you accept the archive and the no-pause rule.

• Storyworth: best for a storyteller who likes to write; see our Storyworth alternatives.

• Remento: best for a storyteller who would rather talk than type and still wants a book; see our Remento alternatives.

• Phone recorder: best for total privacy at zero cost, if someone labels and backs up the file.

• Afterlife.ai™: best when the family wants to keep asking and hear the answers in the storyteller's own voice.

Our roundup of the best apps to record grandparents' stories puts more options side by side.

In the first year, StoryCorps and a phone recorder cost $0, Storyworth $69 to $99, Remento $99, and Afterlife.ai™ $0 on the free build or $179.88 on Legacy, as of October 2026. In this example, a family records Grandma over Thanksgiving and wants something to show for it a year later.

Over three years, Remento costs $297 if you renew at $99 a year, and Storyworth Unlimited costs $397 with its $99 renewals (Remento, 2026; Storyworth, 2026). Legacy is the most expensive line in this table, and nobody pays it until Grandma wants more than her free build. The cheapest strong combination is the StoryCorps App on Thanksgiving Day plus a free Afterlife.ai™ build that weekend, for a total of $0; every plan is on our pricing page.

Record the interview first, then the storyteller builds their own Persona from those stories and their voice. The Persona then answers new questions in their own words and cloned voice. A son or daughter can do the setup, but the parent owns the Persona and makes every decision.

1. Record the conversation using the steps above.

2. The storyteller creates a free account on iPhone, Android or app.afterlife.ai, with no card; the free build never expires.

3. They add their stories as memories. The free build includes 25, and the best stories from the interview make a strong first batch.

4. They record their voice, which is free to create, and hear their Persona speak in their own cloned voice; the first listen is free.

5. They choose who can talk with their Persona, naming up to 5 Trusted Contacts and setting up Executor Lock™ at no cost.

6. The family asks new questions, about the first apartment or the secret in the chili, and the Persona answers from the storyteller's memories, in their own words.

7. Optional: add a Persona Video. One 30-second recording makes video messages in their own face and voice, and the first Persona Video is free.

Under 18s cannot build a Persona, so in a Great Thanksgiving Listen setup the teenager runs the interview and the grandparent builds. Afterlife.ai™ never recreates a person who did not consent while alive, and one account works across iPhone, Android and app.afterlife.ai in 42 languages. Our guide to preserving a parent's voice covers the voice recording in more detail.

StoryCorps keeps a public-interest archive, the book apps keep your account, and on Afterlife.ai™ the storyteller owns their Persona while Executor Lock™ governs what happens later. Storyworth keeps your account open after a plan ends, with a free e-book or audiobook download on any plan, and Remento lets you download the original recordings anytime, even if you never renew (Storyworth, 2026; Remento, 2026).

Afterlife.ai™ adds a governance layer the others lack. With Executor Lock™, the storyteller names an executor and Trusted Contacts while alive; at verified death the Persona is locked as a perfect snapshot, so nobody can edit, retrain or impersonate them, and the family always meets the Persona the storyteller approved. Anything they leave for specific people is released after Executor Lock™ activates. Idy®, the company behind Afterlife.ai™, has 78 patents pending, including two international PCT applications filed in August 2026, and our Executor Lock™ page explains how the lock works.

• StoryCorps: StoryCorps Connect

• StoryCorps: The StoryCorps App

• StoryCorps: Great Questions

• StoryCorps: Great Thanksgiving Listen fast facts

• StoryCorps Help Center: How do I record my story?

• StoryCorps Help Center: App interview length

• StoryCorps Help Center: Recording a phone call

• StoryCorps Help Center: Recording remotely with StoryCorps Connect

• StoryCorps Help Center: Privacy and the Library of Congress

• Wikipedia: StoryCorps

• WGCU: The Great Thanksgiving Listen (2025)

• Google Play: StoryCorps

• Storyworth: Storyworth Pricing

• Remento: Pricing and FAQ