How it works

You ask. They answer. Your family keeps it.

Heartwood is a quiet way to ask the people you love the questions you’ll wish you had asked, and to keep their answers in their own voices.

  1. 1

    You ask one question.

    Choose someone and write the question you’ve always meant to ask. Heartwood sets it in a short letter from you. If you like, record yourself asking it, so the first thing they hear is your voice.

    A note from Ian

    Mom —

    I’ve been thinking about how much of our family lives only in your memory.

    Love, Ian

    Ian as a newborn, asleep, beneath a label reading “Ian Marshall”A photograph can go with the question
  2. 2

    They answer out loud.

    Heartwood texts them your letter. One tap opens it; they tap the round and speak, for a minute or an hour. No app, no account, and no wrong way to answer.

    What do you remember about the day I was born?

    Tap to start speaking

  3. 3

    You hear them, and it’s kept.

    You hear the answer in their own voice, with their words beside it. It’s kept privately for your family, and every answer becomes a ring in your family’s Heartwood.

    Ring no. 3 in your family’s Heartwood

Then leave a few words back in your own voice, or ask the next question when you’re ready. A family’s Heartwood grows one question at a time.

What we promise

  • Your family’s stories belong to you. Keeping something here does not make it ours.
  • Private to your family. You decide who hears what.
  • No advertising, and no sale of family data.
  • A voice stays its own. Heartwood never imitates anyone or writes words in their name.

In this early version, Heartwood arranges each delivery and reviews each answer before it reaches you. There is no charge.

Read our promise

Who would you ask?

They answer by text, in their own voice, with one tap. No app, no account.