Digital Time Capsule

A digital time capsule is a sealed storage space where you place files — photos, videos, voice recordings, letters, documents — together with an opening date. On that date, and not before, the people you named receive the contents. It is the same idea as the box buried in a garden, without the shovel, the rust, or the risk of never finding it again.

Buried box or digital capsule: what actually changes

A traditional time capsule is an object: a steel tube, a wooden box, filled and then put away. It has real charm and two weaknesses familiar to anyone who has buried one — you have to remember the spot, and someone has to be there to open it.

Alolao does not try to replace the feeling of holding an object: that is why every Alolao capsule comes with a physical QR Code. Slip it into an envelope, tape it behind a picture frame, have it engraved. There is still something to hand over and to find again — and behind it, contents that do not decay.

What to put in a time capsule

This is the question that stops most people in front of an empty capsule. A few things that reliably work, depending on what you want the person to feel when they open it:

• A video of you talking. It is what gets watched first, by a wide margin. One minute is enough. A face and a voice carry what text cannot.
• A voice recording alone. Easier to make than a video if you dislike being filmed, and just as strong to hear again.
• A handwritten letter, photographed. Someone's handwriting is part of what they leave behind.
• The photos nobody else has. Not the official album: the bad shots, the backstage, people mid-laugh.
• The texture of the times. What a loaf of bread cost, the song you played on repeat, what the living room looked like. This ages best of all.
• What you hope for them. A capsule opened in twenty years does not need advice: it needs to know what you thought of them.
• The documents that matter. A deed, a contract, access codes, the list of who to contact. Less romantic, often the most useful.

When does the capsule open?

You set the date, to the day. Every message goes out in its author's own time zone, not the server's: a message scheduled for "24 December at 8 pm" arrives at 8 pm where you are, wherever the site happens to be hosted. You can schedule several deliveries on different dates inside one capsule — the eighteenth birthday, then the wedding, then nothing for ten years, then one last message.

Until the date passes, you remain free to edit, add or remove anything you like.

Who receives the capsule?

Alolao separates two roles, and the difference matters:

• The primary recipient: one single person. They access the capsule, download the files and read the messages. They get an account, free, at no cost to them.
• The secondary recipients: as many as you want. They receive email notifications, with no account to create.

A capsule can also be protected by a secret code that you pass along separately, if the QR Code has to stay somewhere visible.

The occasions this is made for

• A wedding. Instead of — or alongside — the guest book: guests leave a note or a video, and the whole thing is delivered to the couple on an anniversary chosen in advance.
• A birth. Start the capsule at the hospital, add something every year, hand it over on the child's eighteenth birthday.
• A departure. Retirement, moving abroad, the end of a shared adventure: those who stay leave a message to be opened later.
• A milestone birthday. Thirty, forty, fifty: the capsule is filled by several people, in secret, and opens on the day.
• Getting ready. An illness, an age, or simply the wish to plan ahead: the capsule becomes the way to say what you would not say out loud, and to pass on documents nobody else could find.

How long does a digital capsule last?

With Alolao the duration is chosen at purchase and runs up to fifty years. Payment is one-off: there is no subscription to maintain, so no capsule is lost because a card payment failed fifteen years later.

Files do not sit on a single machine: they are stored on duplicated professional storage. The question every capsule deserves — "what if the service disappears?" — is the right one to ask, of Alolao as of anyone else. That is why the primary recipient can download the entire contents at any time and keep their own copy.

Frequently asked questions

Does the recipient have to pay anything?
No. Receiving a capsule, opening it and downloading its contents is free for the recipient. The sender buys the capsule.

Can the capsule be opened before the date?
The sender can: it is their capsule and they keep control of it. The recipient cannot — they receive nothing before the date you set.

Which file formats are accepted?
Video, audio, photo, text and PDF. In practice: whatever a phone produces.

What if the recipient changes email address?
You can change the recipient and their details as long as the capsule has not been delivered. This is precisely why it is better to name someone early rather than late.

Can a capsule be given as a gift?
Yes. A capsule can be bought and transferred to another account: that is the point of the QR Code, which makes the gift tangible.