Grow-Up Reel

Grow-Up Reel › Face timelapse maker

A face timelapse from your daily selfies.

Drop in a year of selfies. Each one is lined up by the eyes, sorted by the date it was taken and played back fast, so the face stays still while everything else changes.

  • Runs on your device
  • No upload, no account
  • Free MP4 for Reels, TikTok, Shorts
Made with this tool from 14 Rembrandt self-portraits (public domain).

Add your selfies: a week, a year or ten

Up to 400 photos. They're sorted by the date they were taken.

Your photos stay on this device. Nothing is uploaded, and there's no account.

It finds where faces are in these photos so it can line up the eyes. It doesn't recognize who anyone is, and the photos are never uploaded or saved by this site.

Photo

Why your eyes have to line up

In a face timelapse the eyes stay pinned to the same spot in every frame. That's what makes it watchable: your face holds still and the haircuts, beards, glasses and seasons flicker past. Shoot the photos by hand and every frame drifts a little left, right, closer or tilted, and the result shakes. This tool finds the eyes in every selfie and rotates, scales and shifts each photo so they land in exactly the same place.

Settings that suit a photo-a-day project

  • Speed: 0.1 to 0.15 seconds per photo. A year of daily selfies plays in about 45 seconds.
  • Between photos: Fade or Cut. Morph is lovely across years, but at this speed a short fade reads better.
  • Captions: Month and year, so viewers can follow time passing without reading every frame.
  • Shape: 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts; 1:1 if you post in the feed.

Shooting tips for next year's timelapse

  • Hold the phone at eye level, at arm's length, and look straight into the lens.
  • Use the same spot and the same light when you can: a window in front of you is better than a lamp above you.
  • Keep the original photos. Screenshots and messaging apps strip the date the photo was taken.
  • Missed a day? It doesn't matter. The reel follows the dates you have.

More detail: how to shoot a daily selfie that lines up.

Questions

How many photos can I use?

Up to 400 in one reel. Finding the faces takes about a tenth of a second per photo on a laptop and a little longer on a phone, and the video is made after that.

Do I need to install an app?

No. It runs in your web browser on a phone or a computer, and the photos are read straight from your device. There's no account and nothing to install.

My selfies are in the wrong order. Why?

The order comes from the date stored in each photo. Photos saved from messaging apps or edited in some apps lose that date and get the date they were saved instead. Tap a photo to set its date, or use the original files from your camera roll.

Are my selfies uploaded?

No. Everything happens inside your browser tab and nothing is sent to a server. Read how the privacy works.