What happens to my messages if I'm not around.

This article covers two cases: short stretches where you're not actively using the app (travel, deployment, illness), and the longer-term case — including after you've died.

We name the death case directly because that's why most dads use this product: to make sure their kids hear them at moments the dad can't be there for. The product needs to keep working even after the dad doesn't.

If you stop logging in

Your scheduled messages keep delivering on the dates and milestones you set. Date-based deliveries continue automatically. Milestone-based deliveries pause until your co-admin marks the milestone, or until the calendar fallback hits.

If you become incapacitated

Your co-admin can mark milestones and update recipient contact info to keep delivery on track. They cannot read, watch, or listen to the contents of unreleased messages — only manage their delivery.

After you've died

Your co-admin (or, where one isn't designated, immediate family with documented authority) takes over the steward role. The same limits apply: they manage delivery; they don't access unreleased message contents.

We treat your recorded material as a stewardship relationship, not transferable property. The dad who recorded the messages is the only person we've ever heard from about how he wants them used. After he's gone, our job is to honor what he set up — not to re-purpose his words, generate new ones in his voice, or hand his account contents to people he didn't designate.

What we never do

• We never generate new "messages from dad" using AI. Every message a recipient gets is one you actually recorded.
• We never grant a co-admin or family member access to the contents of unreleased messages.
• We never sell, license, or transfer your vault, your recordings, or your contact list.
• We don't release recordings to non-designated family members on request, even after death, without documented authority you set up while alive.

If you want more control

If you have specific wishes — for example, you want particular messages destroyed in certain circumstances, or you want your co-admin to have extra authority — write those wishes down and email us at hello@whatwoulddadsay.app. We're still building out long-term stewardship tools, and we'll honor documented wishes where we can.