Short answers to the questions people ask most.

About five quiet minutes. The wizard asks who you would want reading this, where you keep important documents, and the few accounts that would matter most. You can stop at any point and come back; nothing requires a single sitting.

No. A binder with three or four sections is already more than most households leave behind. Each section shows its own status, Missing, Partial, or Current, so you always know what is worth coming back to next, without anything nagging.

Every entry as you type it. There is no "save" button. If your connection drops mid-sentence, the next time you open Afterward your draft is waiting where you left it.

Not yet. Afterward is a write-it-once, read-it-when-needed surface, not a password vault. We deliberately do not import bulk credential exports. The binder is meant to point a trusted person to the right places, not to become another copy of your secrets. The three most important keys go into sealed envelopes; everything else is described, not stored.

The web app works on every phone and tablet. A native iOS app is coming in a later wave, a few months after the web release. The work you do today moves over with you when it ships.

A short piece of writing that is locked on your device before it ever reaches us, and addressed to one specific person you name. Only that person can open it, and only after the courtesy interval has run its course or you choose to share it sooner.

We hold the locked version. We cannot open it. We cannot read it. The metaphor is literal: a sealed envelope handed to a named recipient.

Because three is what almost every survivor actually needs first: the phone passcode, the primary email password, and the password manager master. With those three, your trusted person can reach almost everything else themselves. Adding more turns the binder into a vault, and a vault is not what we are.

They can still ask to read what you addressed to them. Opening a sealed envelope happens in their browser, after they confirm a fresh sign-in link. If their email changes, they can update where the link is sent, and you can update who the recipient is at any time from your binder.

Yes, but only on a device that has already signed in to your binder. Opening a sealed envelope of your own re-asks for the same key you set up on first use, so a stranger holding your unlocked laptop cannot read it without the second step.

Open the envelope, edit the contents, and re-seal it. There is no version history; the older sealed copy is replaced cleanly. We will quietly remind you to revisit sealed envelopes once a year as part of the annual review.

They open a link in any browser. No app to install, no account to create, no password for them to remember. They confirm their identity with a single sign-in link sent to the email or phone you wrote down for them, and the binder opens.

Everything you have written into the open sections. Sealed envelopes only open after the courtesy interval ends or you share them sooner. You can also mark individual sections as visible only to specific recipients. For example, the household section visible to your spouse, the financial section visible to your sibling and your accountant.

On the Family plan, yes, and you can set section-level visibility per person. On the Free plan, you name one. Either way, you can change who is named at any time, and the change takes effect immediately.

Their link stops working immediately. They are removed from any sealed envelopes addressed to them, and the next time they try to open the binder they see a quiet message that the binder is no longer shared with them.

Only if you choose. The default is quiet: the binder is yours, and how you have your conversation about it is yours too. If you would rather they know up front, there is a one-tap option to send a short, plain note explaining what you have done and why.

If you do not open Afterward for 60 days, we send a quiet note asking if anything has changed, by email and by text, to whichever you set up. A check-in, not an alarm.

If another seven days pass without a response, the people you named can ask to read what you left them. You can override either window from the app at any time, or end the request entirely.

Yes. The 60 / 7 split is the default; you can move it from 30 days up to 180, or turn it off completely. People who travel for work often lengthen it. People who want their family to reach things sooner shorten it.

Opening the app once is enough to reset the interval, even a single visit on the road counts. If you anticipate being away from your phone for a stretch, you can pause the interval ahead of time, and resume it when you are back.

Yes. Some people prefer to share the binder on their own timing rather than let an automated interval do it. If the interval is off, your recipients cannot ask to open the binder unless you share it directly.

You receive a notification, by email, by text, and inside the app, and you have seven days to say no. A single tap dismisses the request and the binder stays closed. If you do not respond at all within those seven days, the binder opens to the recipient. This is the design; the interval is the only thing that lets the binder do its job when you are not the one to open it.

Free includes all nine binder sections, one trusted recipient, the no-account share link, PDF export, and a 20-item cap that is enough for a useful first draft. Family removes the item cap and adds the three sealed envelopes, multiple recipients with section-level visibility, up to six household members, and a quiet annual review prompt.

The courtesy interval and full data export are on every plan, including Free.

Open Settings, then Billing, then Cancel. One tap, no email-the-team gauntlet, no retention call. Your card is no longer charged at the next billing date. Your binder stays where it is, and you can keep reading and exporting it.

It stays. Read-only access to everything you have already added. Sealed envelopes remain accessible to the people you addressed them to. You drop back to the Free 20-item cap for new entries, and we stop sending the annual review nudge. Nothing is deleted, ever, without you asking for it.

Yes, at any time, on any plan. PDF, plus a portable archive of every entry. We do not hold your binder hostage. Data portability is a trust signal, not a premium feature.

Email hello@afterward.care from the address on your account and we will erase it. You will receive a final export by email first so you have a copy before anything is removed. Deletion is permanent and we will tell you that clearly before we do it.

If you are within the first 30 days of a Family subscription and decide it is not for you, write to hello@afterward.care and we will refund the year, no questions. After that, cancelling stops the next charge but does not refund the current period.

No. Your binder is locked on your device before it reaches us. We hold the locked version; the keys live with you and the people you named. Even with full access to our servers, what we have looks like sealed envelopes: addressed, but unopenable.

We cannot open it for you. Not because we will not, because the architecture genuinely does not allow it. The same property that keeps a court out is the property that keeps us out.

This is why we ask you to write the recovery words down somewhere physical when you start. They are short and they are the second key to the binder. The annual review prompt asks you, gently, whether you still know where they are.

No. Structurally we could not even if we wanted to. Your binder is locked before it leaves your device. There is no advertising business attached to Afterward, and there will not be one. The product is the product.

Your email address and the basics needed to bill the Family plan if you are on it. The size of your binder and when it was last opened, so the courtesy interval can run. The names and contact details of the people you marked as recipients, because we need to know where to send the link if the interval ends. The contents of the binder itself are not in that list.

On the security page. It is written in plain language, with the precise technical detail tucked behind a "show me more" toggle for anyone who wants it.