FAQ

Stories take only seconds longer to create than social media posts, but offer far more benefits. It can be as simple as a title and photo, perhaps with a short voice voice narration for the personal touch. In fact, we recommend stories are short, so people can read them within 1-5 minutes. Think bite-size stories, not book-size stories.

Also, this is an ongoing FAMILY venture, not just you. Everyone in your family can play a different role and partake according to their time. If you are busy, just read others’ stories when time allows and optionally add comments/likes. To contribute more, send story requests to others on topics you want to hear about. You can even add co-authors to your story so family can join you in the creation process.

Unlike forgotten photo books and archived digital files, your stories are woven effortlessly into daily life as story reminders. Each day you will be reminded of past stories that happened on today’s date. Bringing old memories back to life.

And as new generations join Simirity, they will have the pleasure of learning all about their family’s past through your stories.

When publishing a story, you decide who will see it and if future generations will gain access. We encourage users to share widely and allow stories to pass on to future generations.

Imagine the thrill of accessing real-life stories from your ancestors – this is the gift you can give future generations. But it’s just as easy to create stories only for you and a select few, or even a private story for your eyes only.

People who struggle with using computers will indeed need assistance setting up their account. But once done, there are admin and story co-authoring options that can help. Allowing you to manage their account, help them create stories or even write stories on their behalf.

In our experience, people capable of checking emails or using common apps, are usually more than capable of understanding the basics of story creation and finding stories of interest.

Sadly, no company can guarantee this. Rest assured you can download media files and stories upon request. And we’ve built Simirity with flexibility in mind, so hosting the app on your own computer might be possible if needed in the future.

Ultimately though, we are a family business saving our stories on Simirity too, and there’s no way we can accept anyone’s stories being lost.

And whatever happens further down the road, Simirity’s focus is making a real difference to your family’s lives today.

Please visit our Compare to Alternatives page for a graphical comparison. In summary, great though these apps are, they are not optimised for connecting families, nor savings stories or files in a way that’s easy to search for or pass onto future generations.

Imagine the frustration 20 years from now if you wanted to find a specific photo or message from today… That’s why few families use these services for preserving and accessing historical family’s stories.

Don’t worry, you won’t. Your stories will always be saved, but access to story content within the app will be downgraded to the Free subscription plan. You will still be able to access all your family’s story pages. Upgrade any time to regain full access.

All app pages feature a help section for users to quickly find answers to common queries. For further assistance, contact customer support at info@simirity.com.

We understand your concern regarding the use of your family’s data to cover the cost of free subscriptions. However, we assure you that we do not use your family’s data in any way to cover these costs. As a family business, we prioritise the well-being of families over profit-making. Our goal is to assist as many families as possible, which is why we have a free subscription option. The cost associated with the free subscription is supported by the families that choose to pay for a subscription.

Yes. Authors can share their stories with friends outside of Simirity. And you may choose to add ‘family friends’ to your family listing within Simirity so you can share stories just like you do with family. However, Simirity is not a traditional social media platform where you share content with many friends or contacts. It is designed with your family and ‘family friends’ in mind.

Legally, children under the age of 13 are not allowed to use the app independently. Children aged 13 to 18 may use the app with the guidance and supervision of a parent or guardian. As their administrator, you will be able to give them login details if you so wish. When children turn 18 they we gain full administration rights of their profile.

Yes. That is a great way to have memories of them live on. All such content will clearly indicate that you are creator and not the deceased person.

No, that would be illegal. However, you can send them a joining invitation and if they join they can easily give you administration access. Then you can edit their profile and create stories about them.

Even without a profile, you can still include someone in your stories. However, you won’t be able to tag them or search for their stories.

Yes. Every story has a lead author who owns the story, but they can add as many co-authors as they wish. You can even message each other within the app with your story ideas.

Yes. As the author, you fully control who can view your story. You can publish to everyone, specific groups within your family, named individuals or keep it for your eyes only.

Yes, once they have authorised you to write stories about them. Alternatively, they can add you as a co-author to their story and you can contribute to their story.

That is our goal. We test Simirity on everyone from grandchildren to grandparents, with the aim of keeping the app simple for everyone but with great optional features that advanced users can access. And most pages have their own help section to answer the most likely questions.

This is entirely possible, however, it depends on who you give access to your stories. For example, a private story will not be passed on. We recommend you give access to all your contacts or to groups within your family if you would like your story to be passed on. Contact lists and groups can, with your permission, be managed by future generations. So as your family grows, your contact list and groups will too. And new generations will gain access to your stories.

Yes. Simirity is built with flexibility and privacy in mind. Users can connect/disconnect with contacts at any time, change relationships (with versatile relationship options), and even hide their family contacts from other family members.

Join with a free subscription. Explore the app and our inspiration for story topics before creating some initial stories to share with your family. When ready, add family members to your contact list which will send them an invitation email. In this invitation you will be able to attach links to your published stories, so they have an example of what Simirity can offer. Once they have joined, we recommend creating story ‘Requests’ for family members. This is your chance to encourage them to create stories that would be meaningful for you. And it’s a great way to get everyone to publish their first story.

No.

No. Simirity has a very different goal to other social platforms. Simirity is designed to help your family connect, and do so in a private environment that the users fully control, free from advertisements. To get an idea of how different we are, see comparisons.

Yes. Your name will not be shown in public searches. People can still find and connect with you if you give them your Simirity account’s email address.

Simirity is a ‘Progressive Web App’, designed to work seamlessly on all devices including Android and IOS. Currently, native apps are not available for Android and IOS.

Yes. And you can even filter those images for things like date, location, story tag etc.

Yes. You can tag participants of the story, tag people in photos and videos, add stories to story categories, and even pin the story location on a map.

All devices. Simirity is a ‘Progress Web Application’ (or PWA), meaning it works on all types of computers, tablets and mobiles using the native web browser. You can even download a link to your mobile home screen for it to work similarly to a native app.

No. Visit Simirity as irregularly as you like, and all the newest stories will be waiting for you clearly indicated. We want you to have a healthy relationship with Simirity. Not be addicted to constantly checking it.

No. There is no tree showing all family connections, but you will have a family list with all family members and relationships specified.

No. English is the only language currently. There are plans to add additional languages, in recognition of the fact that families extend beyond borders. Please check back for updates.

Yes, you can add a link to these online photo albums. The photos will not be visible within the story, but readers can access them via the link.

No. Currently you can only add photos and videos to stories. You can not directly save such files directly to Simirity’s cloud.

Yes, users of Family and Family+ subscriptions can. This is not possible with free subscriptions.

A story could be called a ‘post’ or ‘entry’. It’s a bit like a magazine article, just with optional videos, audio and interactive elements. It need not be complex, in fact we recommend stories that take no more than 10 minutes to view.

Yes. Authors can enable ‘Share with Private Link’ on specific stories, so they can be shared on any platform.

It’s up to you. Perhaps everyone in their family tree. Perhaps a select group or several individuals. Perhaps it’s a diary entry just for you. Or share with friends outside of Simirity using the ‘Share with Private Link’ feature.

Yes. Every story has a lead author who owns the story, but they can add as many co-authors as they wish. You can even message each other within the app with your story ideas.

Yes. As the author, you fully control who can view your story. You can publish to everyone, specific groups within your family, named individuals or keep it for your eyes only.

Yes. It would be your private story. But should you change your mind, you could give access to others at any time.

Yes. Our ‘Experts‘ are a team of enthusiastic, creative story writers who would be delighted to work with you. Discuss your needs with them on a free 30-minute call to receive a cost estimate.

Yes. The story date can be set to any date prior to today’s date. If you can’t recall the exact date, you can just give the month and year, or just the year.

Yes. Stories are saved in the cloud, not on local devices.

Yes. View our Pricing for more details.

Yes. Simirity is here to help all families. Even with Free subscriptions you can fully connect to all your family and create unlimited text based stories. You can even add Youtube videos and Google photo albums in your stories.

Subscription is annual and is managed on a family not individual basis. View Pricing for more information.

Yes. We aim to provide a great experience, year after year, even with Free subscriptions. But for the best experience we recommend the Family or Family+ subscriptions where additional pages can accessed and media files can be saved directly in stories.

Users of the Subscription will no longer be able to add photos, videos, audio, narrations or attachments to stories. You can still create text based stories and access the Premium pages within the app. If your Subscription renews, users will once again be able to add media files. To add media files before your Subscription renews, purchase a Media Boost that entitles you to additional uploads.

It depends on your subscription. Everyone can have a Free subscription. The purchased Family subscription can be shared with up to 10 people. The purchased Family+ subscription can be shared with up to 25 people.

No. Subscriptions can only be shared with users who are listed in your family contact list.

No. There are no storage costs to continue saving your data. There are however media file upload limits specified within the Family and Family+ Subscriptions. These relate to the media files uploaded within your subscription period.

Simirity proudly provides a free service of real value that includes no adverts, 100% data privacy and no other sales generating activities. Our optional premium services help cover Simirity’s costs and ongoing improvements. In addition, we invest 10% of sales into community related projects, which is only possible thanks to premium subscriptions.