Timelapse Creator

A blazing-fast, cross-platform desktop application for creating beautiful timelapses from videos.
Built with Rust + Tauri + React for optimal performance and a native-like experience.
View Demo · Download · Report Bug · Request Feature

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• About The Project
• Features
• Demo
• Downloads
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
  • Development Setup
• Usage
• Building
• Tech Stack
• Changelog
• Roadmap
• Contributing
• License
• Contact

About The Project

Time-lapse photography is a technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much more spread out than the frequency used to view the sequence. It allows users to create beautiful videos of slow-changing environments.

Timelapse Creator is a complete rewrite of the original Python/Tkinter application, now built with modern technologies for:

• ⚡ Blazing Fast Performance - Rust backend with FFmpeg for highly optimized video processing
• 🎨 Beautiful Native UI - Modern, responsive interface that looks great on all platforms
• 📦 Small Bundle Size - Tauri provides native-like apps with minimal footprint
• 🖥️ True Cross-Platform - Works seamlessly on Windows and Linux

Features

• 🎬 Batch Processing - Convert multiple videos at once
• 🚀 Speed Options - Choose from 2x to 1000x speed multipliers
• 📊 Real-time Progress - Visual progress tracking for each conversion
• 🎯 Format Support - MP4, WebM, AVI, MOV, MKV, and more
• 💾 Auto-save - Converted files saved to organized output directory
• 🔒 Secure - No internet required, all processing done locally

Demo

Demo video coming soon.

Downloads

Pre-built executables are available for all major platforms:

Platform	Download	Requirements
Windows	Download from latest release	Windows 10+
Linux	Download from latest release	Modern Linux distros

Note: FFmpeg must be installed on your system for video processing.

Installing FFmpeg

Windows:

# Using Chocolatey
choco install ffmpeg

# Or download from https://ffmpeg.org/download.html

macOS:

# Using Homebrew
brew install ffmpeg

Linux:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

# Fedora
sudo dnf install ffmpeg

# Arch
sudo pacman -S ffmpeg

Getting Started

Prerequisites

For running the application:

• FFmpeg installed and available in PATH

For development:

• Node.js (v18 or later)
• Rust (latest stable)
• FFmpeg

Installation

1. Download the appropriate executable for your platform from the Releases page

2. Run the executable

   • Windows: Double-click the .exe file
   • Linux: Make the .AppImage executable and run it

Development Setup

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/animikhaich/Timelapse-Creator.git
cd Timelapse-Creator

2. Install frontend dependencies

cd frontend
npm install
cd ..

3. Run in development mode

Desktop App Mode (Recommended for full development)

cd src-tauri
cargo tauri dev

This builds both the Rust backend and React frontend, then launches the desktop application with hot-reloading enabled.

Web App Mode (For UI development only)

cd frontend
npm run dev

This runs the React frontend in the browser, useful for rapid UI iteration without the desktop wrapper.

Usage

1. Select Videos - Click "Select Videos" to choose one or more video files
2. Choose Speed - Select the desired speed multiplier from the dropdown (2x - 1000x)
3. Convert - Click "Convert" to start processing
4. Find Output - Converted files are saved in an outputs folder next to the source files

Building

Development Build

cd src-tauri
cargo tauri dev

Production Build

cd src-tauri
cargo tauri build

The built executables will be in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Build Platforms

Build Environment	Output Formats
Windows	.exe, .msi
Linux	.AppImage, .deb, .rpm

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Backend	Rust
Framework	Tauri 2.0
Frontend	React + TypeScript
Build Tool	Vite
Video Processing	FFmpeg

Why This Stack?

• Rust + Tauri: Native performance with ~90% smaller bundle size than Electron
• React: Modern, component-based UI development
• TypeScript: Type safety and better developer experience
• FFmpeg: Industry-standard video processing, highly optimized

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history.

Roadmap

See the open issues for planned features and known issues.

Planned features:

• Custom output format selection
• Preview before conversion
• Drag and drop support
• Custom output directory selection
• Audio track options (keep/remove)
• Quality presets

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for more information.

Contact

Animikh Aich

• LinkedIn: Animikh Aich
• Email: animikhaich@gmail.com
• X: @animikh_aich