Every drawing records its own timelapse.

You draw. DrawingPad keeps the moments.

A timelapse shows how a drawing came together: the first loose lines, the clean outlines, the color. DrawingPad records one automatically for every drawing. There is no record button to remember and nothing to set up.

After each change, such as a stroke, a fill or an undo, DrawingPad stores a small picture of the whole canvas when the browser has a free moment. It never interrupts a stroke, so drawing stays as smooth as before. A drawing keeps up to 240 moments; on long drawings, every other older moment is dropped to make room, so the video still covers the whole process evenly.

Turn it into a video.

1. 1

   Open Export image…

   In the app menu, choose Export image… (⌘E / Ctrl+E) and select Timelapse as the format.

2. 2

   Pick the size

   Choose 1080 or 720 pixels for the long side of the video. The video has the same shape as your canvas. Turn End card on or off: it ends the video with “Made with DrawingPad”.

3. 3

   Create the video

   Select Create video. It is made on your device, usually in a few seconds, and a preview plays when it is ready.

4. 4

   Download or share

   Select Download to save the file. On phones and tablets that support it, Share… sends the video straight to an app such as Instagram, TikTok, Messages or Photos.

The drawing part of the video lasts between 3 and 14 seconds, depending on how many moments were recorded. The finished drawing then stays on screen for a moment before the optional end card. In Chrome, Edge, Safari and recent Firefox the video is an MP4 (H.264) that plays almost everywhere; browsers that cannot create MP4 files directly record the canvas as a WebM or MP4 video instead, which takes as long as the video itself.

Opened an old drawing, or want to leave the warm-up sketch out? Select Start the timelapse over from here in the timelapse export. The recorded moments are deleted and the timelapse restarts from the drawing as it is now.

Add the timelapse to a share link.

When you choose Share… in the menu, turn on Include timelapse video. The link’s page then shows your drawing with a play button for the process video. It is off by default, so a share only contains the finished picture unless you choose otherwise.

People who open the link can also choose Remix to open your picture as the bottom layer of a new drawing of their own. Your layers and the rest of your drawings stay on your device.

Make it look great on Reels, TikTok and Shorts.

• Choose the canvas shape first. The video takes the shape of the canvas: Portrait (4:5) suits the Instagram feed, and a custom 1080 × 1920 canvas fills a phone screen for Reels, TikTok and Shorts.
• Start from a blank canvas. A sketch that turns into a finished piece is the most satisfying thing to watch.
• Use layers for a reveal. Sketch on its own layer, ink on another and hide the sketch at the end: the lines suddenly look clean in the video.
• Try symmetry. A mandala grows in a hypnotic way, and a step-by-step drawing shows every stage clearly.
• Mind your experiments. Strokes you undo appear briefly in the video. Restart the timelapse after a messy start.

Your process stays on your device.

The recorded moments are saved in your browser together with the drawing and are deleted when you delete the drawing. They are not part of .drawingpad project files, and they are never uploaded unless you share a link with Include timelapse video turned on. The video you export is made on your device too.