Legacy Letters

The Legacy Vault is a digital archive for the things you want your family to keep, stories, lessons, encouragement, the reasons behind the way you do things. You can write letters in Total Family with help from AI, or upload letters you already have, then decide who reads them and when.

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Table of Contents

• The Four Categories
• Start a Letter
• Set the Category and Date
• Write with AI
• Format Your Letter
• Choose Who Receives It
• Save the Letter
• View, Edit, and Add More
• Find and Manage Letters
• Upload an Existing Letter
• Grid and Table Views

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The Four Categories

Open Total Legacy > Legacy Vault. Every letter belongs to one of four categories, and the vault opens on all four with a running count of what you have written.

1. Write a Legacy Letter: compose a new letter in Total Family.
2. Upload a Letter: bring in a letter you already have as a file.
3. The four categories: choose the one that fits what you are writing:

Selecting a category opens its own page, which has the same Write a legacy letter and Upload a Letter buttons, so you can start from either place.

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Start a Letter

Select Write a Legacy Letter and an empty letter opens. Nothing is filled in yet except today's date.

1. Title: what your family will see in the vault.
2. Category: which of the four capitals the letter belongs to. Nothing is selected to begin with.
3. Date of Creation: today's date, which you can change.
4. Content: the letter itself.

Start with the title, then write your letter in the Content area. Everything else can be set afterwards, and nothing is stored until you save.

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Set the Category and Date

With your letter written, choose the category from the dropdown under the title. If you started from inside a category it is already filled in, and you can change it here.

Date of Creation defaults to today. Select the calendar icon to pick a different date, useful when you are transcribing something written years ago.

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Write with AI

Type your letter in the Content area. When you want help, the AI works two ways.

Ask for a specific change

Select the ✨ button at the far left of the toolbar to open a prompt box, then describe what you want: "rephrase it", "make this sound less formal", anything in your own words.

1. ✨: opens the AI prompt box.
2. Prompt box: describe the change you want, then send it.

Your original text is struck through and the new version appears beneath it, so you can compare before committing to anything.

Three buttons decide what happens next:

• Try again: regenerate a different version
• ✕: discard the suggestion and keep your original
• ✓: accept the AI version and replace your text

Use a ready-made suggestion

Get suggestions offers six common edits without you having to write a prompt.

Polish wording · Fix spelling & grammar · Make shorter · Make longer · Make warmer · Make more formal

Tip AI is there to help you say what you mean, not to say it for you. A letter your family recognises as yours matters more than a perfectly polished one. Use Try again and ✕ freely.

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Format Your Letter

The rest of the toolbar handles formatting. Left to right:

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Choose Who Receives It

Share Settings, at the top right, controls who can read the letter and when.

1. Recipients: toggle on the family members who should receive it, or use All Recipients to select everyone at once.
2. Add Custom Recipient: invite someone who is not in your family list.
3. When to Open: leave it unticked and the letter is available immediately, or tick Schedule an open-date to hold it until a chosen date.

Adding a custom recipient asks for a name and an email address.

Select Save in the dialog to keep your choices, then carry on writing.

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Save the Letter

Select Save at the top right. A confirmation appears once the letter is stored.

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View, Edit, and Add More

Saving opens the finished letter, laid out with your title, the date, and your name signed at the foot. Three buttons sit above it.

1. Share Settings: the same dialog as before, so you can change recipients or timing later.
2. Edit letter: reopen the editor.
3. Write a new letter: start another one.

Editing works exactly like writing, except Save becomes Update.

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Find and Manage Letters

Each category page lists its letters with the title, who it is addressed to, the date created, and the open date.

The ⋯ at the end of a row opens the actions for that letter.

• View Letter: open it as your family will see it
• Edit: reopen the editor
• Share Settings: change recipients or the open date
• Delete: remove the letter permanently

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Upload an Existing Letter

Not every letter starts in Total Family. Upload a Letter takes a photo of a handwritten letter, a scan, or a document you already have. The accepted formats are JPG, PNG, PDF, DOC, and DOCX, up to 10 MB.

Selecting it opens your file browser. Choose the file and select Open.

The file lands in the editor as the letter's content. Give it a title and pick a category, an uploaded letter needs one just like a written one.

Save it, and it appears alongside your written letters.

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Grid and Table Views

The toggle at the top right of the vault switches how your letters are listed.

• Grid view: the four category cards with their counts, good for choosing where to write next
• Table view: every letter grouped under its category, good for finding one quickly

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