Frequently asked questions

Kunbaa is a private app for the whole extended family: a family tree with every side and every generation, Moments for the family's photos and videos, family chat and calls, and a shared calendar of birthdays and events. Relatives join by invitation only, there is no public feed, and nobody's data is sold. Everyone in the family joins free. There are two paid plans: Kunbaa Plus, $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year on kunbaa.com or in the app, and Kunbaa Ultra, $19.99 a month or $199.99 a year on kunbaa.com. It works on kunbaa.com today, and the mobile app is the daily surface for chat, calls and Family Safety.

Moments is where the family's photos and videos are kept: what relatives post to the family wall, newest first, with no algorithm, seen only by the people in your family space, or, on Kunbaa Plus and Ultra, per post, only your extended family or household. Relatives react, comment and add the names they remember, and the person who posted sees who has seen it. In the Kunbaa app, the Moments board gathers them by the day they were shared, with each event's photos as one album. Moments replaced what Kunbaa used to call Memory Lane.

No. Kunbaa never uses your family's photos, videos, stories or messages to train AI models, and never uses them for advertising. Kunbaa AI, which writes the optional family digests, stays off for each person until they switch it on.

The AI inside Kunbaa, made for one family at a time. You can chat with it about your family, hear its answers read out, and ask it to help plan an event, working only from what your own account can already see. That is part of Kunbaa Plus and Kunbaa Ultra. It also writes family digests: a short recap of the updates you missed, only once you have switched it on, free on every plan.

Kunbaa Plus and Kunbaa Ultra have no ads. The free plan has no ads today, and any ads on it would not be personalised. Nobody's data is sold. Revenue comes from the paid plans.

One person pays, and the plan covers the payer's household, up to 20 accounts. Everyone joins free. Kunbaa Plus is $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, bought on kunbaa.com or in the app, and a first subscription on kunbaa.com starts with a 14-day free trial.

FamilyAlbum is built for sharing a baby's photos with relatives, with photobooks and prints, and its free app shows ads. Kunbaa puts the photos beside a family tree for the whole extended family, every side, every generation, with chat, calls, events and birthdays around it, and, on Kunbaa Plus and Ultra, a choice of who sees each post. If printed photobooks matter most, FamilyAlbum offers them and Kunbaa does not.

FamilyClan is a private photo album and story journal with a family tree, photobooks, guest folders for events and a time capsule. Kunbaa starts from the people: a tree where each relative has their own place and claims it themselves, with the living family around it, Moments, chat and calls, events and birthdays, and, on Kunbaa Plus and Ultra, a choice of who sees each post. If photobooks or a time capsule are what you want, FamilyClan offers them and Kunbaa does not.

Keep the group. That's where the day's chatter lives. Kunbaa does the two jobs a chat is not built for: it keeps, and it takes the calls. Worth knowing: WhatsApp compresses photos and videos substantially, and media on its servers can expire after a limited period. So an old photo can fail to re-download if the sender no longer has the original. Kunbaa stores the full-quality file in your family's own archive, with the names, dates and story kept beside it, so in forty years it still opens.

Google Photos knows a face keeps showing up; it doesn't know she's your mother. Kunbaa keeps the family itself, a tree that records who everyone is to each other, right beside the photos, stories, recipes and dates. A camera roll gives you pictures with nobody left to explain them; Kunbaa keeps the explanation in the same private place, where only your family can open it.

They do a different job, and they do it well: records, DNA and ancestors, research about the past. Kunbaa is a private home for the family that's alive right now. Ancestry hides living people by design, and there's no family calendar, chat or video calling there. If you love the research, use both: keep the records over there and the living family here. On price, as of mid-2026 Ancestry's plans run from $229 to $479 per year; Kunbaa Plus is $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year for the payer's household.

Everyone in the family joins free. The tree, the wall, chat, voice and video calls, events and Family Safety, with room to build the tree and start the photos. There are two paid plans: Kunbaa Plus, $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year (17% less, about $8.33 a month for the payer's household), and Kunbaa Ultra, $19.99 a month or $199.99 a year. One person pays, on kunbaa.com or in the app, and the plan covers the payer's household, up to 20 accounts; other relatives stay free. A first subscription bought on kunbaa.com starts with a 14-day free trial. A card is required, and the charge for the interval you chose is taken when the trial ends unless you cancel first.

Keeping. We'd rather say that plainly than dress it up. Free is enough to build the tree, talk, call and add the first photos, but honestly not enough to hold a real family archive. Kunbaa Plus is what keeps it: longer videos in the family archive where free keeps to short clips, room for the whole family's archive rather than enough to begin, and the photos and videos shared in chat kept for as long as the family is on Plus. The free plan keeps those for a year, then lets them go. One purchase covers the payer's household.

They mostly don't have to. Someone installs the app for them once, and after that looking is one tap. Your side posts, and they see the grandchildren. Contribution is optional; receiving is easy. Kunbaa is built so a handful of keepers do the adding and everyone else simply enjoys what arrives.

No. Kunbaa accounts are 18+, on purpose. Adults keep it, kids are in it: your children appear in the tree and throughout the photos, added by you, which at eleven is what you'd want anyway. Adults-only means no stranger can ever be inside your family's space, and Kunbaa is not collecting data on children.

Private means exactly this: invite-only, no public feed, nobody's data sold, and everything is shared only with your family. To be straight about what it does not mean: Kunbaa is not end-to-end encrypted. Server-side features like search and the family digests couldn't work if it were. Your data travels encrypted between your device and our servers, and your family's content is never used for ad targeting. The help page 'How private is Kunbaa' has the full detail.

Your family's archive is never deleted and stays readable to everyone in the family, and anything kept under Plus stays kept. Adding is limited to the free allowance until you renew, videos in the archive go back to short clips, and photos and videos sent in chat after that follow the free plan's one-year window.

On the free plan, photos and videos sent in chat are kept for a year from sending, and then let go. A placeholder says so, and in the last month anyone who runs the family can tap Keep this to save a copy of one to the family archive for good. On Kunbaa Plus they stay in the chat for as long as the family is on Plus, and anything kept under Plus never expires afterwards. On either plan, sending is never blocked by the archive being full.

Yes, though today it goes through us, and we'd rather tell you that plainly. There is no self-serve 'download everything' button. Contact support and we'll prepare your complete archive for you: full-resolution photos and videos, voice notes and the tree. You should never feel locked in.

Yes. Export it as a GEDCOM file (MyHeritage, Ancestry, Family Tree Maker, Gramps and most genealogy programs can), then open kunbaa.com in a browser and go to Tools → Import a GEDCOM. Kunbaa reads the file in your browser, matches it against the people already on your tree, and shows you exactly what it will write before it writes anything; the people appear in the app straight away. There is a WhatsApp route too: export your family's WhatsApp group, say who each person is to you, and they join the tree. No message is read or kept. If you only have a list or a photo of a handwritten tree, send it to support and we'll build the tree for you while Kunbaa is new.

Yes, private one-to-one voice and video calls, free for everyone, inside the mobile app, right beside chat. One-to-one from the top of any chat, or, on Kunbaa Plus and Ultra, a group of up to 6 people including you that anyone in the family can join, started from a family group chat or by tapping Add during a call. Only the relatives in your family space can ring you, there is no phone number to hand out, and the call starts from their page on the family tree, beside the photos you are about to ask about.

The mobile app is the daily surface: chat and family groups, calls, and the opt-in Family Safety features live there. The website has the tree, the wall, where Kunbaa Plus and Ultra choose who sees each post, the photo library, events, member permissions, and the two importers, a GEDCOM file from another family-tree program, or a WhatsApp group, and it is where a plan bought on kunbaa.com or in the app is managed. What you post in one place is what the family sees in the other.

Yes, with an opt-in Family Safety feature: location sharing and a shared Live Map that stay off until someone turns them on. Share for a set time (15 minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours) or until you stop, with everyone in the family or only the relatives you pick; on iPhone you can also choose Always for roughly hourly updates when the app is closed. Any of it can be stopped at any time, and nothing is tracked until you enable it. It is free for the whole family, and it is not an emergency or monitoring service.

Start small. Create your space, add yourself, connect your parents and siblings, and invite a handful of people first. Then add twenty photos you actually care about. The moment the tree holds your real people and real photos is the moment the family understands what it's for.

Tap the round Tree button in the middle of the bottom bar, tap your own card, then Add, pick the relationship (mother, father, spouse, daughter, son, and so on) and give them a name. Grow outwards from each card: open your mother's card to add her parents and siblings, your partner's card for their side. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, step-parents and in-laws are all there, and a relative who has passed can be marked so, with or without a date. Press and hold anyone for a ring of actions, including viewing the tree from their place. The step-by-step guide is in Help.

No. Anyone can be a person on the tree, grandparents, children, relatives who have passed. An account is only for someone who will open Kunbaa themselves; when you invite them, their account links to the place you already made for them.

Short updates, announcements, photos, videos, voice notes and stories, seen only by the people in your family space or, on Kunbaa Plus and Ultra, if you choose, only by your extended family or your household. A post with a photo or video is a memory drop, and the Moments pill gathers them day by day. Large photos are resized to upload quickly and kept at a size that prints well.

Yes. Every post is private to your family space; with Kunbaa Plus and Ultra you can narrow it further to Extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) or Household (your parents, partner and children), worked out from the family tree. A fourth choice, Only me, is seen by nobody else, and you can change who sees your own post after posting. The choice is applied on our servers to the wall, the library and comments alike, so a relative outside the circle never receives it.

Yes. Whoever runs the family sets each member's level (Admin, Can post, or View only) and three switches per person: post on the wall, add people to the tree, message family members. You pick them when you send the invite and can change them later from the member's profile; a relative who wants more can tap Request access.

Signing in with email one day and Google the next used to carry a different name each time. Now one account has one name: set a Preferred name under Profile (tap your photo at the top of the app to open the menu) and it is shown on every post, chat and tree card, whichever way you sign in, including the old ones.

From the top of any direct line, tap the handset for voice or the camera for video; from a family group chat, on Kunbaa Plus or Ultra, pick up to five relatives for a group call, or tap Add during a call. One-to-one calls are free, and calls ring on every device your relative is signed in on, including the lock screen when the app is closed for a one-to-one call. Every call leaves one line in the thread, so a missed call is never lost.

Yes. Kunbaa tab → Events → +. Name it, set the date and place, choose who's invited. Underneath every event is a to-do list (book the table, bring the cake) with an owner for each job. Birthdays from the tree appear on the family calendar on their own.

Only as much as you choose. Location sharing is off until you turn it on and shares only with the people you pick. A timed share (15 minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours) keeps updating in the background and stops by itself; While using shares while the app is open; Always, on iPhone only, which you enable separately after an in-app explanation and your phone's own permission prompt, also sends your position about once an hour when the app is closed. Saved places (home, school, care, work) can send arrival and departure alerts to the family members you choose.

No password. Enter your email and Kunbaa sends a six-digit code; or use Google or Facebook on kunbaa.com, or Google in the app, or Apple on an iPhone. After the first sign-in on a device, Face ID or your fingerprint gets you back in. If a code doesn't arrive, check spam and tap Resend. A code lasts 15 minutes.

Yes, phone, tablet and the website, with the same email. Everything is the same everywhere, and calls ring wherever you're signed in.

A first Kunbaa Plus subscription bought on kunbaa.com starts with a 14-day free trial. A card is needed to start it. If you cancel before the trial ends, you are not charged. If you don't, the first payment for the interval you chose is taken when the trial ends, and the plan renews from then on. Trials are not offered to an account that has subscribed before. In the App Store the offer is the first 2 weeks free, and in Google Play a free trial, each shown to you before you confirm.

Cancel with whoever bills you. Bought on kunbaa.com: sign in and go to Settings, then Plans, then Manage billing. Bought on iPhone or iPad, cancel it with Apple: Settings, your name, Subscriptions, Kunbaa (https://support.apple.com/en-us/118428). Bought on Android, cancel it with Google Play: the Play Store app, your profile picture, Payments & subscriptions, Subscriptions, Kunbaa (https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7018481). The plan stays on until the end of the period you have paid for, with no cancellation fee and no minimum term. Deleting your Kunbaa account cancels a kunbaa.com subscription but not one bought in an app store: cancel that in the store first.

For a plan bought on kunbaa.com, email support@kunbaa.com and we will look at it. If you were charged by mistake, charged twice, or charged after you cancelled, we refund it. Cancelling stops the next renewal but does not by itself refund a period that has already started, unless the law requires a refund; your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, and your own country's consumer law, are never reduced by this. For the App Store, Apple decides refunds, not Kunbaa: ask at https://reportaproblem.apple.com, signed in with the Apple Account you paid with. For Google Play, request it from Google Play (https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2479637).

Your family's archive is never deleted. It stays readable to everyone in the family, and anything kept while you were on a paid plan stays kept. What changes is what happens next: adding goes back to the free allowance, new videos in the archive go back to the free plan's length, and photos and videos sent in chat from then on follow the free plan's window. You can ask us for a full copy of your family's content at any time, on any plan, free of charge.

One person pays, and the plan covers their household. A plan covers the payer's household: their partner, their children and their partner's children, adopted children included, and both sets of parents, up to 20 accounts. Other relatives use Kunbaa free, or take their own plan. Nobody the plan covers needs a card.

On kunbaa.com, a Kunbaa Plus subscriber moves up to Kunbaa Ultra from Settings, then Plans: the payment page shows what you will pay before you confirm. Moving down takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for, so you keep Kunbaa Ultra until then. A plan bought in the App Store or Google Play is changed in that store.

On kunbaa.com prices are in US dollars, and your bank may convert them. Where we have to charge tax, such as GST in Australia, it is included in the price, never added on top, and your invoice shows it. kunbaa.com does not take payments from every country yet; where it can't, checkout says so before anything is charged. The App Store and Google Play charge in your local currency and show that price, with any tax, before you confirm.

A founding family is given a year of Kunbaa Plus for their household by invitation, redeemed on kunbaa.com. It costs nothing and needs no card. It doesn't renew by itself, so nothing is charged when it ends: your family goes back to the free plan, and your family's archive is never deleted. If you start a subscription during that year, the subscription is what covers you, and the year keeps counting down beside it.