# Timelapse

Replay a passage or a whole season as an animated track, set it up the way you want, share it as a link, and export it as a video.

A timelapse replays your logged tracks as a moving boat on a chart, with moorage names and your own notes appearing as captions along the way. It can be one passage or every mile you have ever logged. You can watch it, share it as a link, or export it as a video file.

![The timelapse player replaying a passage](https://assets.saillogger.com/static/docs/timelapse.webp "A timelapse of one passage. Every option lives in the address, so you can share exactly this view.")

## The four pages

Everything lives in the **timelapse** menu in the top navigation.

| Menu item | Address | What it is for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **timelapse** | under `https://saillogger.com/timelapse/` | Watching |
| **customize** | [saillogger.com/timelapse/customize/](https://saillogger.com/timelapse/customize/) | Choosing trips, speed, colour and map |
| **videos** | [saillogger.com/timelapse/recordings/](https://saillogger.com/timelapse/recordings/) | Your exported videos |
| **export** | [saillogger.com/timelapse/export/](https://saillogger.com/timelapse/export/) | Downloading tracks as GPX |

Choose **timelapse** to watch straight away. Everything else starts from the customiser.

## Set one up

Open [saillogger.com/timelapse/customize/](https://saillogger.com/timelapse/customize/) and work down the form.

- **Choose Trips**: a switch. Leave it off and the timelapse covers your whole logbook. Turn it on and two more fields appear, **Start Trip** and **End Trip**, each a dropdown of your logged trips by date and name. Set both to replay one passage, or a range for a season.
- **Base Map**: `Satellite Overlay` (imagery with place names over it), `Satellite` (imagery alone) or `Street Map`.
- **Animation Speed**: `Snail Speed`, `Very Slow`, `Slow`, `Normal` (the default), `Fast`, `Very Fast` or `Light Speed`. Slower settings show more detail on a short trip; faster settings make a long passage easier to watch.
- **Track Color**: Dodger Blue by default, plus Green, Yellow, Red, Orange, Black, Gray and White. Pick something that stands out against the base map you chose: a dark track disappears over deep water.
- **Remove Moorage Overlays**: a switch. See captions below.
- **Zoom Level**: 5, 6, then 8 to 13, default 10 (7 is not offered). Low numbers show a whole sea area, high numbers stay close to the boat. If your track runs off the edge, come down a number.
- **Initial Delay**: `None`, `5 seconds` or `10 seconds`, a pause before the boat starts moving. Useful when you are screen-recording it and need a moment to start.

Then press **Play**.

> [!TIP]
> Every choice you make ends up in the address of the player. That means a timelapse set up exactly the way you like it can be shared, or bookmarked, as a plain link. Copy the address from your browser once it is playing.

### Choosing settings that suit what you are showing

| What you are showing | Sensible starting point |
| --- | --- |
| One day sail | The trip in **Start Trip** and **End Trip**, `Slow`, zoom 12 or 13 |
| A week's cruise | The range of trips, `Normal`, zoom 10 or 11 |
| A whole season | **Choose Trips** off or a wide range, `Fast`, zoom 8 or 9 |
| An ocean passage | The single trip, `Very Fast`, zoom 5 or 6 |

If playback feels too slow, raise the speed. If the boat moves off the edge of the map, lower the zoom level. Change either setting in the customiser and press **Play** again.

### If it does not look right

- **The track runs off the map.** Lower the **Zoom Level**.
- **Nothing plays.** The chosen range holds no logged trips. Widen it, or switch **Choose Trips** off to use everything.
- **The track is hard to see.** Change **Track Color**, or switch the **Base Map** to `Street Map`.
- **You want no place names on screen.** Turn on **Remove Moorage Overlays**.

## Captions

Two things write captions across a timelapse as the boat passes them:

- **Moorage names**, added automatically at the start and end of each trip. Switch **Remove Moorage Overlays** on in the customiser if you would rather have a clean chart.
- **Your own notes**, wherever you attached one to a position. They add your account of the passage as the boat reaches each point. See [Notes, photos and your journal](https://saillogger.com/docs/journal-and-notes.md).

Notes stay attached to their recorded positions, so every note in the selected trip range appears as a caption during playback.

## Watching

The player has:

- **play and pause**, bottom left
- a **distance legend** that counts up as the boat runs, in your own distance units
- a **share** button
- a red **record** button, which only you see

## Export it as a video

The red record button turns what you are watching into an MP4 file you can post or keep.

1. Set the timelapse up in the customiser first. Changes you make on the map after playback starts, such as zoom or base map, are not captured in the recording.
2. Press the red button and confirm. Saillogger warns you that the conversion can take a while.
3. Saillogger takes it from there. You do not have to keep the page open.
4. Open **videos** in the **timelapse** menu, or [saillogger.com/timelapse/recordings/](https://saillogger.com/timelapse/recordings/). The page refreshes itself, and the status moves from **Queued** to **Processing** to **Ready for download**.
5. Click **Ready for download** to save the file.

> [!WARNING]
> Videos are deleted 72 hours after they are made. Download the file as soon as it is ready if you want to keep it.

If a selected track is too long for one video, the page asks you to choose a shorter range. Return to the customiser and narrow **Start Trip** and **End Trip**; a season may need several video files.

> [!NOTE]
> On an iPhone or iPad, a downloaded MP4 lands in **Files**, not in Photos. Move it across before posting it to social media.

## Share a timelapse

The share button hands over the address you are watching, options and all, so the other person sees exactly your version.

Sharing needs **Timelapse** switched on in your Sharing settings. If it is off, the button tells you the page is not public and offers **Go to Sharing settings** so you can turn it on. Turning it on publishes your timelapse at your boat's public address; it does not publish anything else.

## Export your tracks as GPX

[saillogger.com/timelapse/export/](https://saillogger.com/timelapse/export/) gives you a GPX file for a chosen range of trips. GPX opens in chart plotters and most navigation software, so this is the way to take your tracks somewhere else, or to keep a copy of your own.

It works like the customiser:

- **Choose Trips**, with **Start Trip** and **End Trip** when it is on. Off means everything you have logged.
- **Granularity**: how many points the file holds. `Extremely Granular`, `Very Granular`, `Granular`, `Normal` (the default), `Coarse`, `Very Coarse` or `Extremely Coarse`. Coarser means fewer points and a smaller file.
- **Export** to download it.

Start at `Normal`. Go finer if you want every wiggle of a harbour approach, and coarser if the file is too big for the device you are loading it onto: some older chart plotters refuse a track with too many points.

## The timelapse in the modern app

If your boat is on the modern app, `/app/timelapse` is a smoother player: it scrubs, it has a satellite toggle, and it can follow the boat as it goes rather than holding one fixed view.

Recording, the customiser and GPX export stay on the classic pages described above, so use both: set up and export on the classic pages, watch wherever you prefer.

> [!NEXT]
> Tell Saillogger when to call you about the boat: see [Alerts and notifications](https://saillogger.com/docs/alerts-and-notifications.md). To decide who can see your timelapse in the first place, see [Share your boat](https://saillogger.com/docs/share-your-boat.md).