What's Actually Happening to BeReal in 2026 (It's Not Shutting Down, but It's Not 2022 Either)

Is BeReal shutting down?

No. Neither BeReal nor Voodoo has announced a shutdown, and their public statements contain no wind-down plan or discontinuation date. Voodoo bought BeReal for roughly €500 million (about $537–540 million) in June 2024. According to Sifted's reporting on Voodoo's FY2024 results, BeReal went from losing around $3 million a month before the acquisition to breaking even within a few months. It was generating roughly $2 million a month in revenue, with monthly active users stabilized around 30 million. Voodoo CEO Alexandre Yazdi told Sifted the company was "quite happy with the result" and still working on features to help BeReal grow again rather than stagnate. The business doesn't appear to be preparing for a shutdown.

The honest timeline: peak, decline, acquisition, stabilization

BeReal had a genuine cultural peak, followed by a steep decline. The app hit roughly 15 million daily active users in October 2022, then dropped to around 6 million by March 2023. That's about a 61% decline in five months, as the novelty wore off and the "authentic photo" premise stopped feeling new. By the time Voodoo bought it in June 2024, BeReal was reportedly losing about $3 million a month. Founder and CEO Alexis Barreyat stepped down as part of the deal and was replaced by Aymeric Roffé, previously CEO of another Voodoo-owned app, Wizz. Weeks after the acquisition closed, BeReal laid off around 28 employees across engineering, QA, and marketing. COO Romain Salzman publicly confirmed the layoffs and described them as a refocusing of the team around France and Europe.

At first, that looked like the beginning of a shutdown story. The next few months went differently. Per Sifted, BeReal reached breakeven, monthly active users stabilized around 30 million, and Voodoo kept investing instead of winding the product down. Voodoo itself was profitable, with €623 million in FY2024 revenue.

BeReal is growing in Japan

Some of the strongest evidence for BeReal's continued health comes from a market that Western coverage often overlooks. BeReal opened its first office outside France in Japan in November 2024. By March 2025, CEO Aymeric Roffé told Nikkei Asia that Japan's monthly active users had passed 4.5 million, making it BeReal's second-largest market after the US. Per that interview, 83% of Japan's users are Gen Z and roughly 90% of them post actively. Some coverage also cites close to 10x year-over-year growth in Japanese users. A new foreign office and a named executive discussing that growth with a major business outlet don't suggest a product being left to die.

The more immediate risk is change

The concern behind the shutdown rumors is real, but change is the more immediate issue. As with any app you don't own, BeReal can alter the product underneath you and undo the very thing you liked about it. That has already happened once. The app's premise used to revolve around the two-minute posting window: a notification fires at a random time, and you have two minutes to post an unedited, un-staged photo before you're marked "late." That window has quietly become optional, allowing staged, delayed photos instead. Coverage from Dazed ties BeReal's decline directly to this change because it weakened what had set the app apart from Instagram. BeReal also runs a full advertising platform. It includes in-feed ads in the same dual-camera format as regular posts and full-day "brand takeover" placements. Through a program called RealBrands, verified brand accounts, including Nike, Netflix, and Amazon, can post inside the same daily window as everyone else. None of this is scandalous; a social app under new, profit-focused ownership has to fund itself somehow. It does show that the rules can change without a shutdown announcement, a vote, or any warning.

Ownership beats speculation

You can't predict what Voodoo will do with BeReal next, and reading tea leaves in quarterly results isn't a backup strategy. You can decide whether your photos live only inside an app whose roadmap you don't influence. Plenty of products that held people's daily memories are gone now. Their archives stopped being worth maintaining after ownership or priorities shifted, whether or not anyone foresaw that years earlier. Cowbird, a storytelling platform that held more than 100,000 personal stories from 25,000 authors, shut down in 2017. Facebook Moments, an app built specifically to hold and share your photo history, was discontinued in 2019 with a deadline to save your photos before deletion. Apple retired My Photo Stream, free rolling photo storage millions of people relied on, in 2025. None of those shutdowns were announced years in advance. An app you don't own can change or disappear on someone else's timeline, often without much warning. That uncertainty is reason enough to back up BeReal now, even though the app isn't shutting down today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is BeReal shutting down?

No. Voodoo acquired BeReal in June 2024 for roughly €500 million. BeReal reached breakeven within months and now runs an active advertising business with 200+ advertisers. Neither BeReal nor Voodoo has announced a shutdown or wind-down plan. The app is smaller and less culturally dominant than it was in 2022. That amounts to a decline from its peak, not a shutdown.

Is BeReal still popular in 2026?

It depends where. BeReal's mainstream cultural moment has clearly passed in the US and Europe. Daily active users fell from roughly 15 million in October 2022 to around 6 million by March 2023, and the app no longer has the same presence in those markets. Sifted reports that monthly active users have stabilized around 30 million globally. In Japan, BeReal is growing, with over 4.5 million monthly active users as of BeReal's CEO's March 2025 interview with Nikkei Asia. That makes Japan the app's second-largest market after the US.

What happens to my memories if BeReal changes or shuts down?

Nothing is guaranteed. BeReal isn't shutting down today, but apps under new ownership can change direction without warning. That has already happened with the two-minute window becoming optional. Products that held people's memories, including Cowbird, Facebook Moments, and Apple's My Photo Stream, have all been discontinued in the past. Exporting your BeReal memories yourself is the only way to ensure they outlive whatever decision Voodoo makes next. See our full export guide for the step-by-step process.

Don't wait for a headline to tell you it's time. Back up before it's too late →

See also: How to download all your BeReal photos · How to save your BeReal memories · Before you delete BeReal · All guides