Your voice, your face, your words — kept safe and delivered to the people who matter, exactly when the moment comes.
Everything your family will one day treasure — kept in one place, delivered when it matters.
Here is the hard part.
Not the passwords. Not the paperwork. The things only you can say. Who they were named after. What you were thinking the day they were born. The story behind the photograph no one else can explain.
Every month that passes is another story that fades a little further. The people who do this rarely wish they'd waited. They only wish they'd started sooner.
You don't have to finish it today. You just have to begin.
Begin todayWhat it actually feels like
Drag in the pictures that matter. Old scans, phone photos, anything.
Tap anyone in the photo and tell us who they are. Add a note if you like.
We hold it safely and deliver it to the people you choose, when the moment comes.
That's the whole thing. Your first memory takes about a minute.
Not only for goodbye
Messages in Time is built for the day after you're gone — but it's just as much for every moment you'll want to reach across. A message doesn't have to wait for the end. It can arrive at a beginning.
We designed the company around one promise: to still be here when your family needs us. Your one-time payment is invested so the returns — not your principal — fund the platform indefinitely. Why we're built to last →
Messages in Time began in 2018, when its founder asked his grandfather for a letter that never came. Read the story that started it →
The problem with your photos right now
Apple Photos, Google Photos, Amazon Photos — they hold billions of family memories. And when the account holder dies, those memories become inaccessible. Platforms require death certificates, legal documentation, and lengthy processes that most families never complete. The photos don't disappear immediately — but they become unreachable. And even when they are accessible, no one knows who's in them.
Where your photos live now
With Heirloom
You don't need to move everything. Pick the photos that tell your life — the 50 that matter most. Name the faces. Write one sentence. Now your family has something no platform can give them.
Prefer to begin with photos only? Start with Heirloom for $99 →
The Heirloom Archive
The Heirloom Archive is where your photographs are held in trust. Tell us who's in them and what they mean, choose who receives them, and we keep them safe — and deliver them when you're gone. The full Messages in Time product adds your documents, recordings, and messages alongside them.
Heirloom Archive
Photos only · the simplest way to start
One-time · No subscription
Want documents, video, audio and messages too? That's the full Messages in Time product — $179.
Start with Photos Only — $99How It Works
Upload the photos and documents that matter most. Name the faces, add the dates, write the stories only you know. Your archive builds itself, chronologically, as you go.
Designate the family members who should receive your archive. You decide exactly who gets what — everything held privately in trust until the moment comes.
Designate a trusted person — a spouse, sibling, or close friend — to confirm life events before anything is released. A human always confirms. Never an algorithm.
When the moment arrives, your family receives your archive through a secure, private link. Add Messages in Time and your recorded video, audio, and written messages arrive right alongside it.
Delivery Triggers · Messages in Time
A 50th birthday. Your anniversary. A holiday morning. Set the exact date and time your message is released — no confirmation needed, it simply arrives.
A graduation. A wedding. The birth of a grandchild. Your Caretaker confirms the milestone has arrived, then your message is released — privately and securely.
When the time comes, your Caretaker notifies us. We verify with care, then release your messages and archive to the people who need them most. No guesswork. No automation.
The Caretaker
"A real human confirms every delivery. That's not a limitation — it's the whole point."
Every other platform relies on automated systems to detect death or inactivity. We believe something this important deserves a person. Your Caretaker is the trusted individual you designate to confirm life events before anything is ever released. Standing Watch keeps the connection active — checking in with you regularly, and notifying your Caretakers through a defined escalation sequence if you don't respond.
Caretakers don't see your archive or your messages. They can't change them. They simply confirm when the moment has arrived.
Pricing
No subscriptions. No annual renewals. Pay once and everything your family will one day treasure is held securely — delivered exactly when the moment arrives.
Everything your family will one day treasure — in one place.
One-time · No subscription
Looking for something simpler?
Heirloom Archive
Photos only — named, dated, and delivered to your family forever.
$99 one-time
Start with Photos Only →Know someone who should do this? Additional accounts are $89 — give one as a gift or add a family member. Purchase from your dashboard anytime.
The Permanence Promise
The most common fear about digital legacy platforms is simple: will they still exist in 20 years? We've built our business model around answering that question structurally — not with a promise, but with a system.
Your one-time membership fee is invested in U.S. Treasuries. The returns — not your principal — fund platform operations indefinitely.
A dedicated reserve fund is held separately, earmarked solely for ensuring your archive is delivered even in extraordinary circumstances.
No automation triggers a delivery. A real person confirms every life event. That layer of human judgment protects you from false positives indefinitely.
Because we don't rely on recurring fees, your archive isn't at risk if you forget to renew, change cards, or simply move on with life.
Our Mission
Every family carries things that shouldn't be lost — a grandmother's voice, a father's advice, the photographs no one remembers to name. Messages in Time exists to make sure those things survive the one thing that ends everything else: time. We hold your words, your photographs, and your documents in trust, and deliver them to the people you love exactly when the moment comes — whether that's a birthday decades from now or the day after you're gone.
A short history of reaching each other
For all of human history, the story of communication has been the story of sending ourselves further — across rooms, oceans, and generations. Each invention preserved a little more of who we are and carried it a little further. Messages in Time is the next step: not across distance, but across time.
c. 3200 BCE
For the first time, a thought could outlive the moment it was spoken. Words could travel to people the writer would never meet — the first message ever sent forward in time.
1839
Suddenly a face could be kept. Not described, not painted from memory — captured exactly. We could finally show the future what someone truly looked like.
1877
The phonograph preserved something photographs couldn't — a voice. For the first time, someone long gone could still be heard, exactly as they sounded.
1888
Now we could capture a person in full — moving, speaking, alive. The closest thing to preserving presence itself, ready to be witnessed decades later.
1996
Communication became real-time and personal. A message could reach someone the instant you thought of it — distance all but disappeared, as long as they were there right now.
2004
We began naming the people in our memories — attaching identity to images, connecting faces to names. But only for the living, and only for now.
2010s
Thousands of memories preserved effortlessly, carried in every pocket. Yet all of it locked to an account that quietly ends when we do — a lifetime of images with no way forward.
Today
Every instinct we've ever had — to write, to capture, to name, to reach someone — finally sent across the one distance no technology had crossed: your own lifetime. To a date not yet arrived, an event not yet happened, a person not yet born.
Drag the bar or scroll to follow the story →
The Permanence Promise
The most common fear about digital legacy platforms is simple: will they still exist in twenty years? We answer that structurally — with a float model, a dedicated delivery reserve, a human Caretaker layer, and no subscription risk.
The founder, as a boy, with his grandfather.
Why this exists
I wanted to know what he believed was most important in life. What he'd tell his twenty-year-old self if he could go back. Whether he had any regrets. I wanted to see the world through his eyes, if only for a moment — to keep his words, his memories, his stories, and carry them forward from one generation to the next.
Unfortunately, I never received that letter. The wisdom I'd longed to capture passed away alongside him.
Years later, leading up to my wedding day, I asked the same of other elders in my family — hoping to make up for what I'd lost. But again, I was left letter-less. It was around that time, in 2018, that the idea for this company first came to mind. With all the technology and connectivity we have, there had to be an easier, more deliberate way to preserve the words of the people we love — long after their time here has come and gone.
I'm a founder who has built and exited companies before. This one I'm building differently — to be kept, not sold. It's easy to attach value to things, but the most valuable thing any of us has to give is knowledge, and the story of a life.
That's why the company runs the way it does. The float model was designed so the promise outlives its founders: your one-time payment is invested, and the returns — never the principal — fund the platform indefinitely. It's the same structure endowments and insurers use to keep obligations that stretch across generations. The company was designed around the promise, not the other way around.
Pass it on.
Marc RubinoFounder & CEO, Messages in Time
Questions
The Heirloom Archive is the simplest way to start — for a one-time $99, you preserve the photographs that matter most, named, dated, and delivered to your family forever. The full Messages in Time product ($179) adds document storage, video, audio, and written messages, and all three delivery triggers.
Those platforms store your photos while you're alive, but lock your family out when you pass — often permanently, behind legal processes most families never complete. And even when photos are accessible, no one knows who's in them. Heirloom holds your archive in trust, with every face named and every story attached, and guarantees delivery to the people you choose.
For $80 more ($179 total), Messages in Time lets you record video, audio, and written messages and deliver them through all three triggers — a scheduled date, a life milestone, or after your passing. Your messages arrive right alongside your Heirloom archive. Heirloom tells your family who you were; Messages lets them hear it in your voice.
Yes. Additional accounts are available for $89 — you can purchase one for a parent, grandparent, or anyone in your life you think should have this. They receive a gift notification and create their own independent account. You can give a gift from your dashboard at any time after your own account is created.
We've built our business model to prevent exactly this. Your one-time fee is invested in U.S. Treasuries, and the returns fund operations indefinitely. A dedicated Delivery Guarantee Reserve holds additional funds specifically earmarked for delivery. We're designed to be here when the moment arrives — regardless of when that is.
No. Your Caretaker has no access to your archive or messages, cannot view them, and cannot modify them. They simply receive a secure, tokenized link that lets them confirm a life event has occurred. Nothing more.
No — recipients can always view and download everything you left them, free, forever. Nothing they receive is ever locked behind a payment. We create a secure, free space where they can see every photo, read every note, and download anything they want to keep. The only optional step is a $79 account of their own, which lets them add to the archive — record their own messages, tag more photos, and begin building a legacy to pass on themselves. Recorded messages delivered to them arrive by a simple private link, no account needed.
Yes — with Messages in Time. Our Deferred Recipient Identity feature lets you record messages for future children or grandchildren before you have their contact information. You assign the recipient's details later, when the time is right.
Yes. There are no subscriptions, no annual renewals, and no recurring fees. The Heirloom Archive is $99 one-time. The complete Messages in Time product is $179 one-time and includes your Heirloom photo archive, documents, video, audio, written messages, and all delivery options. Everything is held for life and delivered exactly when it's supposed to be.
Early Access
Join the waitlist to be among the first families to preserve their story with Messages in Time.
No spam. No marketing. Just a note when we're ready for you.
Messages in Time, Inc.
Messages in Time exists to preserve what matters most to families and deliver it at the right moment — sometimes many years from now. That mission only works if you trust us with deeply personal material. This policy explains what we collect, why, how we protect it, and the rights you have over it.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use the contents of your archive for advertising. We do not use your photographs, recordings, documents, or messages to train machine learning models.
Because our service is built to act at a future moment, some processing necessarily involves other people. We want that to be completely transparent.
We never sell personal information and we do not share archive contents with advertisers or data brokers.
We use industry-standard technical and organizational safeguards, including encryption of data in transit and at rest, access controls, and infrastructure hosted with established cloud providers. No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure, but protecting irreplaceable family material is the core of our business, and we design accordingly.
Our service is intentionally long-duration. We retain your account information and archive content for as long as your account remains active and for as long as necessary to fulfill the delivery instructions you have given us — which may be many years.
You may access, correct, export, or delete your information by signing in to your account or by contacting us at legal@messagesintime.com.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect and how it is used and shared; to request deletion; to request correction; and to opt out of “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the CPRA. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.
If you are located in the EEA or UK, you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection, and the right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority.
Legal bases for processing: performance of our contract with you; your consent where required; our legitimate interests in security, fraud prevention, and service improvement; and compliance with legal obligations.
International transfers: your information may be processed in the United States. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses.
The service is not directed to children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA/UK), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them as account holders. Adults may include images of, and messages addressed to, children within their own archives; that content is under the account holder’s control.
We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the service. Because our commitments extend across decades, we will not make changes that materially reduce the protections applied to content you have already entrusted to us without giving you notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond.
Messages in Time, Inc. · legal@messagesintime.com
Messages in Time, Inc.
These Terms of Service govern your use of the services provided by Messages in Time, Inc., a New Jersey corporation. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to these Terms.
Messages in Time provides a platform for preserving photographs, documents, and recorded or written messages, and for delivering that material to people you designate, at a time or upon an event you specify.
An Heirloom Archive account may be upgraded to the complete product at any time for the difference in price.
You retain all ownership of the content you upload. We claim no ownership of your photographs, documents, recordings, or messages. You grant us a limited license to store, process, transmit, and deliver that content solely to operate the service and carry out your delivery instructions.
You may not upload content that is unlawful, that infringes intellectual property or privacy rights, that contains malware, or that is intended to harass, threaten, or harm any person.
Certain delivery triggers require you to designate one or more Caretakers. A Caretaker’s role is limited to confirming that a triggering event has occurred. A Caretaker does not receive access to the contents of your archive unless you separately designate them as a recipient. You are responsible for informing anyone you designate and confirming they are willing to serve.
Because delivery is irreversible, we may require reasonable verification before executing it, including documentary confirmation of a death. We may decline or delay delivery where we have a good-faith basis to believe a request is fraudulent, mistaken, or made under duress.
Recipients are never required to pay to view or download what you left them. Access to delivered content is free and is not time-limited. A recipient may optionally purchase an account of their own in order to add to the archive and create their own messages; that purchase is never a condition of receiving or keeping what you delivered.
We will use commercially reasonable efforts to execute delivery as instructed. We cannot guarantee delivery where recipient contact information has become invalid, where a recipient cannot be located or has predeceased you, where a Caretaker fails to respond, or where circumstances beyond our reasonable control prevent it. We encourage you to review your instructions periodically.
Membership fees are charged once, at the time of purchase. There are no subscription or renewal fees for the membership tiers described above. Prices are stated in U.S. dollars and may change for new purchases; a change in price does not affect memberships already purchased.
You may request a refund within [30] days of purchase. After that period, membership fees are non-refundable, because funds received are placed into the reserve structure described below and are relied upon to fund the long-term obligation we have accepted.
We describe publicly how the company is structured to remain able to perform many years from now. Specifically:
Nature of this commitment. This describes our structural design and operating intent. It is a statement of how the company is built, not a guarantee against every possible future event. Nothing in this section creates a fiduciary relationship, a trust for your benefit, or a guarantee of investment performance.
If Messages in Time is acquired, reorganized, or ceases operations, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to transfer delivery obligations and archive content to a successor capable of honoring them, or, failing that, to give affected members and known recipients reasonable notice and a means of retrieving their content.
We may modify, add, or discontinue features. We will not make changes that materially and adversely affect the delivery commitments applicable to content you have already entrusted to us without providing notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond. We may perform maintenance and may experience interruptions; we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability.
You may close your account at any time. Closing your account cancels pending delivery instructions and results in deletion of your content, subject to our Privacy Policy. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that are used unlawfully.
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR THAT CONTENT WILL BE PRESERVED WITHOUT LOSS.
Your own copies. We strongly encourage you to retain your own copies of irreplaceable material. Our service is designed for durability, but it should complement — not replace — your own safekeeping.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MESSAGES IN TIME WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, OR GOODWILL. OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO US.
Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Messages in Time and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from claims arising out of content you upload, instructions you provide, your violation of these Terms, or your infringement of the rights of any third party.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in New Jersey, and you consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.
We may update these Terms. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the service before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
Messages in Time, Inc. · legal@messagesintime.com