Your family's memories belong at home.

root@home turns a computer you already own into a private cloud for your family's photos, videos, movies, music and documents. Everything stays on your hardware, and you never pay a subscription to see your own files.

Get beta access Why root@home

The story

Somewhere along the way, we stopped keeping our own memories. First steps. Birthday candles. Grandma's handwriting on a recipe card. [Twenty thousand moments] now live on someone else's computer, and every month [we pay rent] to see them.

A family standing together on a beach, looking out at the ocean

You know this message.

Your family's history hits a storage limit, and the only fix is a bigger plan at a higher price, with more of your life on servers you'll never see.

The math

$0

That's twenty years of a 2 TB cloud plan, and if you stop paying, you lose access to your own photos. root@home runs on a computer you already have. Your storage is whatever drive you plug in, and nobody can raise the price on your memories.

Illustrative: a typical 2 TB plan at $9.99/month, before tax and future price increases. Hardware you already own isn't counted.

The idea

Bring it home.

root@home runs quietly on a Mac, Windows PC or Linux machine that stays on in your house. Every phone, laptop and TV at home connects straight to it, so your photos travel across your own Wi‑Fi instead of across the world.

Home Phones Laptops TV Away from home encrypted · direct no rented cloud

The app

The real thing, running at home.

These are real screens from the beta app, served from a computer at home over plain Wi‑Fi.

root@home Home tab showing pinned items, Continue watching, On this day and Recently added
HomePick up where you left off
root@home Watch tab with All, TV and Movies filters, Continue watching and Franchises
WatchMovies and shows, sorted for you
root@home Hidden Vault screen, locked, with an Unlock with PIN button
Hidden VaultPrivate lists behind a PIN
root@home household Chat screen listing family members
ChatMessage the household, privately

Real beta screenshots. Movie and album artwork blurred.

Everything your family keeps

One home for all of it.

Photos from every phone, the movie shelf, the music library, and the paperwork you can never find. Everyone in the house gets their own space.

Gallery

Every photo from every phone, backed up automatically.

Turn on backup once and new photos and videos go straight home over your Wi‑Fi, in full quality. The only storage limit is the drive you choose.

Watch

Movies, shows and home videos.

Stream your collection to any screen in the house.

Listen

Your whole music library, in one place.

Files

The family paperwork.

Passports, report cards, tax returns and recipes, organized and kept at home.

Private vault

Encrypted before it leaves your phone.

Your vault is locked with keys only you hold. The server at home only ever stores ciphertext.

Household

An account for everyone.

Each person gets their own library, and shared albums go to exactly who you choose.

Away from home? Still yours.

Turn on an encrypted, direct link from your phone back to your house, with no relay or middleman in between.

Backups on a schedule.

Copy everything to an external drive automatically, because one copy isn't a backup.

Private by design

Nobody's watching.
Not even us.

0

copies on our servers

We don't run a cloud that holds your files. Your photos live on your computer, in your house.

0

ads, scans or AI training

Nobody mines your family albums to sell ads or train models. It's your hardware, so you make the rules.

0

monthly rent on memories

No subscription stands between you and your own files. Your library lives on your drive, where it always stays.

During the beta, the app and server send small anonymous health pings, such as app version, crash counts and free disk space, so we can fix problems early. They never include filenames, photos, messages or your name, and they stop when root@home leaves beta.

Setup

Home in about ten minutes.

You won't need the command line or any networking know-how.

1

Install on a computer that stays on

Run the installer. root@home starts with the computer and keeps running quietly in the background.

macOSWindowsLinux
2

Scan to pair your phone

Open the app, scan the QR code on your computer's screen, and your phone is connected to Home.

AndroidiOS coming soon
3

Invite the family

Add everyone in the household. Each person gets their own account, backup and vault.

Rent it, or own it.

Cloud subscription
root@home
Where your photos live
Their data center
Your house
Monthly fee to see them
Every month
None
Storage limit
Your plan's tier
Your drive
Who sets the price
They do
You do
Speed at home
Your internet plan
Your Wi‑Fi
Private vault keys
Varies
Only you

Bring your memories
home.

root@home is in private beta with a small group of families. Get an invite code and set up your household today.

Get beta access

Invite code required · Android app + Mac, Windows & Linux server · Read the setup guide