The best apps for writing your life story in 2026

Not long ago, a life story app meant a list of prompts and a blank text box. Now there are apps that phone your grandmother every week, apps that turn a voice recording into a finished chapter, and AI biographers that interview you and write the book themselves. They’re very different from one another, and the best one depends less on features than on who’s telling the story and how they like to tell it.

This guide sorts the main options into three kinds: AI biographers that interview you and do the writing, guided writing apps where you answer questions in your own words, and simple ways to record family stories by voice.

A note before we start: we make Ever Journal, one of the AI biographers below, so we’re not neutral. We haven’t used every app on this list. Everything here comes from each company’s own website or App Store listing, checked on October 26, 2026, with links at the end. Prices change often, so check before you buy.

The short answer

• Autobiographer if you’d like to talk your story through with an AI interviewer on an iPhone and get a digital autobiography of up to 250 pages.
• Biography Studio AI if you want to try before you pay: the first three chapters are free, then $119 once for the whole book as a print-ready PDF.
• Leaves if you want a free iPhone app that turns one story at a time into a written piece, an audio episode or a video.
• Tell Mel if the storyteller is a parent who won’t use an app: an AI interviewer phones them and writes each call up as a chapter.
• Ever Journal if you’re telling your own story over months or years and want an AI biographer that drafts the book, marks what it doesn’t know and lets you approve every change. Free to start, on the web.
• Meminto or MyStories if the storyteller wants to write it in their own words and you want a printed hardcover at the end.
• Remento or Storii if they’d rather talk than type, by recording from a link or by answering scheduled phone calls.
• StoryCorps or FamilySearch Memories if you just want to record a conversation, for free.

Three kinds of life story app

AI biographers interview you, by voice or text, and write the story from your answers. You do the remembering; the AI does the writing. The question worth asking is what it does with the parts you haven’t told it yet: whether it fills them in, or leaves them for you.

Guided writing apps send questions, usually one a week, and collect the answers in the storyteller’s own words, sometimes with an AI editor to tidy them. Most end with a printed book.

Voice recording apps keep the storyteller’s voice. Some transcribe it and turn it into text; others just keep the recording. They suit people who’d talk for an hour but would never write a page.

Before choosing, settle three things: whether the storyteller would rather write or talk, whether you need a printed book, and whether this is a story you’re telling yourself or one you’re gathering from someone else.

AI biographers: apps that interview you and write

Autobiographer

How it works: Autobiographer is an iPhone app where you have voice conversations with Dave, its AI biographer. From those conversations, it writes your life story.

What it costs: $99 as a one-time payment (marked as a limited-time price), or $16 a month. The one-time plan includes unlimited conversations and up to 250 pages of stories in a digital autobiography.

Best for: People who are comfortable on an iPhone and like the idea of talking their story through with an AI.

Worth knowing: Its site mentions only the iPhone app, and it describes a digital book without saying whether a printed copy is included.

Biography Studio AI

How it works: Biography Studio AI interviews you by voice in a web browser and organizes what you say into the chapters of a biography.

What it costs: The first three chapters are free, with no credit card. The Complete Biography is $119 as a one-time payment and adds unlimited chapters, book formatting and a print-ready PDF.

Best for: Trying an AI biographer properly before paying anything, and paying once rather than by subscription.

Worth knowing: The book comes as a PDF for you to print; its site doesn’t offer a printed copy.

Leaves: Times of My Life

How it works: Leaves is an iPhone app with an AI “virtual biographer.” You pick a topic from more than 100 prompts, answer its interview questions by typing or speaking, and it writes the story in the first or third person, which you can edit or ask it to rewrite. You can add photos, video clips and your own narration.

What it costs: Free, with unlimited stories. Optional in-app purchases unlock premium outputs; the listing doesn’t give their prices.

Best for: Writing one story at a time, for free, and sharing it as text, audio or video.

Worth knowing: Each story can be exported as a PDF, an audio podcast or a video, and you choose whether it’s private, shared with family or public.

Tell Mel

How it works: Tell Mel is for someone else’s story, usually a parent’s or grandparent’s. Mel, an AI interviewer, phones them on a schedule and asks questions. There’s no app, login or typing, and a landline works. Each call is written up as a memoir chapter in their voice, with the original audio alongside, on a private “Living Memoir” website.

What it costs: A one-time payment for the first year: $39 for 2 interview hours, $129 for 12 or $219 for 24, with extra hours at $10 each. After the first year, it renews for $39.

Best for: Parents who will happily chat on the phone but won’t touch an app, and families who speak a language other than English: Mel interviews in ten.

Worth knowing: The memoir lives on a website rather than in a printed book.

Ever Journal

How it works: Ever Journal is a journal with an AI biographer called Eve. You tell her when and where you were born and who raised you, and she drafts your first chapter, marking what she doesn’t know as gaps instead of inventing it. Then she asks one question at a time about the biggest gap in your story. You answer by typing, by talking or with an old photo, and she weaves each answer into the book, organizes the chapters by the eras of your life and shows exactly what changed. Every paragraph links back to the answer it came from, and you approve every change.

What it costs: Free to start, with your first chapter, five questions from Eve a week and unlimited typed entries. Eve+ is $7.99 a month or $59.99 a year (seven days free on the yearly plan) and adds unlimited questions, voice answers, photos woven into chapters and PDF export.

Best for: Telling your own story at your own pace, as a book that keeps growing rather than a fixed set of answers.

Worth knowing: It runs in any web browser, including on a phone; the iPhone and Android apps aren’t out yet. It doesn’t print books, though you can export a PDF to print yourself. There’s more on how she works, step by step, on our AI memoir writer page.

Guided writing: apps that ask, you write

Meminto

How it works: Meminto sends a question each week by text, email or phone, or the storyteller can answer them all at once. They write or speak their answers, relatives can add their own, and AI tools help with the wording. A project can run for up to two years. It works in any browser, and there are apps for iPhone and Android.

What it costs: One payment, with no subscription: $99 for up to 100 pages, $149 for up to 300 pages, or $397 for three printed books. Every plan includes a full-color hardcover.

Best for: Families who want a printed book, plenty of time and several relatives involved.

MyStories by MyHeritage

How it works: MyStories, from the family history company MyHeritage, emails a question each week. The storyteller replies by email, with photos if they like, or records a spoken answer that AI transcribes, and an AI editor helps polish the writing while keeping their voice. The stories become a printed book, with QR codes that play any recorded answers.

What it costs: $99 at its launch in February 2025, including a year of weekly prompts and one full-color hardcover. Its website doesn’t show a price before you start, so check it at checkout.

Best for: Families who already use MyHeritage, or anyone who wants a weekly-question book with the option to talk instead of type.

The best-known service of this kind, Storyworth, works by email and on the web rather than through an app. Our Storyworth alternatives guide compares it with the other gift-book services, Storyworth vs Remento goes through the two biggest in detail, and is Storyworth worth it? covers what you actually get.

Recording family stories by voice

Remento

How it works: Remento sends the storyteller a prompt each week by email or text. They record a voice or video answer from a link, with no app or login, and Remento turns each recording into a written story, word for word or as a narrative, which you can edit. Each chapter in the printed book has a QR code that plays the original recording.

What it costs: $99 for the first year, including unlimited prompts and one color hardcover of up to 200 pages. After that, $99 a year or $12 a month to keep going.

Best for: Storytellers who’d rather talk than type, and families who want to keep the voice as well as the words.

Storii

How it works: Storii phones the storyteller on the days and at the times you choose, and asks questions from its library of more than 1,000, or your own. They don’t need a smartphone or the internet. Each call is recorded, transcribed and stored online, with an AI rewrite of the transcript, and the family can download the stories as an audiobook or a PDF book.

What it costs: A monthly or yearly subscription (the yearly plan includes two free months), or a 12-month gift box. Its pricing page didn’t show amounts when we checked. You pay only while calls are being made, and the stories stay available to read and export afterwards.

Best for: Older relatives who are most at ease on an ordinary phone call.

StoryCorps

How it works: The StoryCorps app, from the nonprofit of the same name, guides you through an interview: you prepare your questions, record the conversation on your phone and upload it. Uploaded interviews go to the StoryCorps Archive and the Library of Congress.

What it costs: Free, on iPhone and Android.

Best for: One meaningful recorded conversation, preserved in a national archive, with no book at the end.

FamilySearch Memories

How it works: FamilySearch Memories, from the nonprofit genealogy site FamilySearch, lets you record a relative telling a story, photograph old pictures and tag the people in them. Each recording is attached to that person in your family tree on FamilySearch.org, and FamilySearch suggests keeping clips under five minutes.

What it costs: Free, on iPhone and Android.

Best for: Collecting short stories, photos and voices as part of a family tree.

Side by side

Questions people ask

Is there a free app to write your life story?

Leaves is free on iPhone, with paid extras. StoryCorps and FamilySearch Memories are free, but they record audio rather than write anything. Ever Journal’s free plan includes your first chapter and five questions a week, and Biography Studio AI’s first three chapters are free.

Can AI write my life story for me?

Yes. Autobiographer, Biography Studio AI, Leaves, Tell Mel and Ever Journal all write chapters from your answers. Before you choose, check two things: whether you can see and edit everything it writes, and what it does with details you haven’t given it. A good AI biographer should leave a gap rather than guess.

Which apps include a printed book?

Meminto, MyStories and Remento include a hardcover. Biography Studio AI, Ever Journal (on Eve+), Leaves and Storii give you a PDF to print yourself. Tell Mel publishes to a private website, and Autobiographer’s site describes a digital book.

Which ones work on Android?

Meminto, StoryCorps and FamilySearch Memories have Android apps. Ever Journal and Biography Studio AI run in a phone’s browser, MyStories works by email, Remento needs only a link, and Tell Mel and Storii work with any phone. Autobiographer and Leaves are iPhone apps, and we found no Android version of either.

Which should you choose?

If you’re telling your own story and want help turning scattered memories into chapters, start with an AI biographer, and choose by how you like to tell it. Autobiographer and Biography Studio AI are built around talking, Leaves around one story at a time, and Ever Journal around a book that grows as you answer, with you approving every change.

If the story is a parent’s and they won’t use an app, Tell Mel, Storii and Remento meet them where they are: on the phone, or with a single link. If a printed book is the point, Meminto, MyStories and Remento include one. And if you just want their voice, StoryCorps and FamilySearch Memories cost nothing.

You can try Eve for free: tell her when and where you were born, and she’ll draft your first chapter in about two minutes. If you’d rather start without any app at all, our 60 life story questions and our guide to interviewing your parents about their life need nothing more than a notebook or a phone.

Sources

Checked on October 26, 2026:

• AI biographers: Autobiographer, Biography Studio AI, Leaves on the App Store, Tell Mel and Ever Journal pricing
• Guided writing: Meminto, MyStories and MyHeritage’s MyStories launch announcement (February 2025)
• Recording by voice: Remento’s pricing guide, Storii pricing, the StoryCorps app and FamilySearch Memories