How to use Sora AI?
You can't — Sora is discontinued. OpenAI closed the app and website on April 26, 2026 and deleted remaining user videos; the API ends September 24, 2026 with no new access issued. Any tutorial or site claiming to give you Sora access today is not offering OpenAI's Sora. Google's Veo and Runway are the live alternatives as of July 2026.
Why — the first-principles explanation
The reason there's no workaround here is worth understanding, because it also tells you which "Sora access" offers are lying.
Sora was never software you installed. It was a hosted model — the weights lived on OpenAI's GPUs, and your app was just a window into them. You typed a prompt, OpenAI's servers spent real money denoising a stack of frames, and a video came back. Nothing ran on your phone. So when OpenAI turned off the servers, there was no copy left anywhere to run. Unlike a discontinued game you can still boot from a disc, a discontinued hosted model simply ceases to exist for everyone at once. No offline mode, no sideload, no old version.
This is exactly why the "free Sora" pages are what they are. OpenAI's Sora weights were never released publicly. So a third-party site cannot be running Sora — it is not physically possible for them to have it. What those sites actually do is one of three things: route your prompt to a different, cheaper video model and call it Sora; show you old Sora clips scraped from social feeds; or collect your card details for a subscription that generates nothing of the kind. The name is the bait, and its unavailability is precisely what makes it good bait — people search for the thing they can't find, which is why these pages are ranking now.
The underlying need doesn't go away, though. If you came here wanting to make a video from a text prompt, that's still very doable in July 2026 — just not with Sora. Google's Veo and Runway both operate that way, with free tiers and paid plans above them. The prompting skills transfer almost completely, because all of these are diffusion-based video models with the same strengths and the same failure modes.
An example that makes it click
Sora was like a restaurant, not a cookbook. You never had the recipe — you sent an order to a kitchen across town and food came back. When the restaurant closed, there was nothing left to cook from. You can't make their dish at home, because you never had anything but a phone number.
Now imagine a stranger sets up outside the shuttered restaurant with a hand-painted sign: same name, same logo, "now serving." They cannot have that kitchen — it's gone. So whatever's in the box is from somewhere else, or there's no box at all and they just wanted your card. That's the entire "free Sora 2 access" industry in one image. Meanwhile, two blocks over, Veo and Runway are open, cooking the same kind of food, with their real names on the door.
How to do it
- Stop looking for Sora access. The model was hosted on OpenAI's servers and shut down April 26, 2026 — no copy exists to run, and no third party can legitimately offer it.
- If you had a Sora account, check whether you exported your videos before April 26, 2026. OpenAI ran an export tool at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset; anything not exported by the cutoff was permanently deleted.
- If you had an API integration, plan your migration now — the Sora API is scheduled to stop working September 24, 2026.
- Pick a live alternative for text-to-video: Google's Veo or Runway are the main options as of July 2026. Verify pricing on the vendor's own site, since free quotas change often.
- Reuse your prompting approach. Describe the shot like a director: subject, action, camera movement, lighting, and style — for example 'slow dolly-in on a red kayak crossing still water at dawn, soft mist, shallow depth of field.'
- Keep clips short and expect to regenerate. Diffusion video models still drift on hands, faces, and any text within the frame, so plan on several attempts per usable shot.
Key facts
- The Sora web and app experiences were discontinued on April 26, 2026; the API is scheduled to end September 24, 2026.
- OpenAI announced the discontinuation on March 24, 2026, roughly six months after the Sora 2 app launched on September 30, 2025.
- OpenAI is not issuing new Sora API access during the remaining window before September 24, 2026.
- Consumer videos left on OpenAI's servers were permanently deleted after April 26, 2026; the export tool was at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset.
- Sora's model weights were never released publicly, so no third party can legitimately run OpenAI's Sora.
- Sora ran as a hosted service on OpenAI's infrastructure — it was never installable software that works offline.
▶ The 60-second explainer (script)
How do you use Sora AI? You don't — it's gone. OpenAI closed the app and website on April 26th, 2026, deleted the videos still on its servers, and the API shuts off September 24th with no new access being issued. Now here's the part that actually protects you. Sora was never software you installed. It was a hosted model — the weights lived on OpenAI's GPUs, and the app was just a window. Nothing ran on your phone. So when OpenAI turned off the servers, no copy survived anywhere. Unlike an old game you can still boot from a disc, a hosted model just stops existing for everybody at once. And OpenAI never released Sora's weights publicly. Which means any site advertising Sora access right now cannot have it. It's physically impossible. What those sites really do: quietly route your prompt to a cheaper model and call it Sora, replay old clips scraped off social feeds, or take your card for something that was never Sora. The name is bait, and it works precisely because you can't find the real thing. But if you just want text-to-video? That still works fine. Google's Veo and Runway are live right now, with free tiers. Same prompting skills, same quirks. Describe it like a director — subject, action, camera move, lighting — and expect a few tries per shot.
What authoritative sources say
People also ask
Is there any way to still access Sora?
No legitimate way. The consumer product is off, and the API accepts no new access before it ends September 24, 2026. Sora's weights were never released, so no third-party site can run it.
What about the Sora app still in the App Store?
A listing or an app left on your phone will not generate video — the model lived on OpenAI's servers, which are off. Delete it; it can't work offline.
Are the 'free Sora 2' websites safe?
Treat them as untrustworthy by default. They cannot be running OpenAI's Sora, so they are misrepresenting what they sell. Don't give them payment details.
What's the closest replacement?
Google's Veo and Runway are the main live text-to-video tools as of July 2026, both with free tiers and paid plans. Prompting techniques carry over almost directly.
Can I recover videos I made in Sora?
Only if you exported them before April 26, 2026. OpenAI permanently deleted consumer videos remaining on its servers after that date.