FOREVER alternatives for family photos and videos

Three boxes of prints, a bag of video tapes you had digitised last year, and a laptop full of photos from every family holiday since 2004. You want them somewhere safe, somewhere that does not depend on you remembering to pay a bill each month. That is exactly the promise FOREVER makes. But one-time prices from $179.99 up to $10,999.99 are a big decision, and there are other ways to keep a family collection. Here they are, with the trade-offs. Prices checked September 2026 on the makers' own websites.

We make The Memory Palace, one of the options below. We describe the others as fairly as we can, and say where they are the better choice.

The short answer

If a long-term guarantee on a large archive matters most, FOREVER is still the strongest promise we found. If you want the lowest monthly cost and automatic backup from your phone, Google Photos or iCloud Photos. If you want free storage next to your family tree, FamilySearch Memories. If you want the photos that matter most kept together with the voices, stories and family tree, and a plan for who receives them later, The Memory Palace. And whatever you choose, keep a copy on a drive at home.

FOREVER and the alternatives at a glance

Option	How you pay	Price (September 2026)	Long-term arrangement
FOREVER	Once	From $179.99 (10 GB) to $10,999.99 (2 TB)	Guarantee for your lifetime plus 100 years on fully paid storage; Account Managers
Google Photos (Google One)	Monthly or yearly	15 GB free, 100 GB €1.99 a month, 2 TB (Google AI Plus) €9.99 a month	Inactive Account Manager; content may be removed after 2 years over quota
iCloud Photos (iCloud+)	Monthly	5 GB free, 50 GB €0.99, 200 GB €2.99, 2 TB €9.99 a month where Apple charges in euros	Legacy Contacts can request access after your death
FamilySearch Memories	Free	Free	Not checked
The Memory Palace	Free or yearly	Free (1 GB), Keeper €49 a year (25 GB), Guardian €79 a year (100 GB)	Guardian: heirs per room or wing, on a date or after a silence you set

Prices and features change. Check them with the provider before you buy.

First, what FOREVER does well

FOREVER sells cloud storage for photos, video, audio and documents as a one-time purchase, with an optional 24-month instalment plan. Paid plans keep full resolution without compression and promise no data mining and no advertising. It is a real photo library, with albums, face grouping and a desktop tool called Valet for bulk uploads that keep your folders and metadata.

Its strongest point is the long view. On fully paid storage, FOREVER guarantees access for the lifetime of the account owner plus 100 years, backed by a guarantee fund. You can name Account Managers and decide how family gets access after you are gone.

Where it pinches: the price is high for large collections (100 GB costs $899.99), payments are non-refundable after the first five days, the free 2 GB Intro Account is not covered by the guarantee, and we found no Dutch, French or German interface. It stores memories very well, but it does not help anyone tell the story behind them.

1. Google Photos: the backup you probably already have

Google Photos backs up the photos and videos on your phone automatically and makes them searchable, with face grouping and albums. You get 15 GB free, shared with Gmail and Drive. The 100 GB plan costs €1.99 a month and the 2 TB Google AI Plus plan €9.99 a month, and every plan can be shared with up to five others. With the Inactive Account Manager, up to ten trusted contacts can download the data you chose if your account stays inactive.

There is no long-term promise. If you stay over quota for two years, content may be removed, with notice.

Better than FOREVER when: you want everyday backup of thousands of photos at a low monthly cost. For more, read Google Photos for family history.

2. iCloud Photos: for families on iPhone

iCloud+ starts with 5 GB free. Where Apple charges in euros, 50 GB costs €0.99 a month, 200 GB €2.99 and 2 TB €9.99, and every plan can be shared with up to five other family members. Apple also lets you add Legacy Contacts, people who can request access to data such as your photos after your death.

Better than FOREVER when: the whole family already uses Apple devices and you want backup that just runs.

3. FamilySearch Memories: free, beside the family tree

FamilySearch Memories is free with a FamilySearch account. You can keep photos, stories, documents and audio recordings, tag them and share them with family. It is not meant for the entire collection of holiday photos, but for the pictures and documents that belong to the people in your tree.

Better than FOREVER when: you want the old portraits and documents linked to your ancestors, at no cost.

4. The Memory Palace: the photos that matter, with their stories

The Memory Palace, which we make, is not built to hold two terabytes of holiday photos. It is built for the part of the collection that tells the family's story: the wedding portraits, the video of the fiftieth anniversary, your mother's voice explaining who is who. Photos, videos, voice recordings, written stories and the family tree come together as wings and rooms of a 3D palace that relatives can walk through.

• Price: a free plan with unlimited wings, rooms and memories and 1 GB. Keeper €49 a year (25 GB). Guardian €79 a year (100 GB, with legacy access for heirs).
• Later: on Guardian you choose who receives the whole palace or certain wings or rooms, and when: on a date, or after a silence of 3 to 36 months that you set. You are emailed first, there are 30 days to reconsider, and a trusted person can stop it.
• Languages and data: English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish. Data is stored in the EU (Frankfurt).
• Leaving: a full ZIP export on every plan, including free. The family tree goes in and out as GEDCOM.
• Where it is not the best choice: we do not promise "forever", and we are not a bulk archive for a whole lifetime of photos. If a century-long guarantee on a large archive is what you need, FOREVER offers that and we do not.

5. A copy at home

No cloud service replaces a copy you hold yourself. Put the full collection on an external drive, keep a second drive somewhere else, such as with a brother or sister, and refresh both every year or two. It costs little and it works with every option above.

How to choose

1. Measure the collection. A few gigabytes of scanned prints and a terabyte of phone videos need different homes.
2. Separate backup from story. Many families use a cheap backup for everything, and a separate place for the few hundred photos that matter, with names and dates beside them.
3. Read what happens later. Who can get in after you are gone, and what happens if you stop paying?
4. Check the language. The person who inherits the collection has to be able to use it.
5. Test the exit. Download a folder today. If it is hard now, it will be harder later.

For a side by side of FOREVER with Storyworth and Remento, read The Memory Palace vs Storyworth, Remento and Forever, or the wider overview in the best apps for family memory preservation in 2026. Before you upload old prints, our free photo restorer can repair one faded photograph without an account. Want to see the palace? Get the app, the link opens the right store.