TimeLapze: Menu Bar Timelapses That Keep the Color and Shrink the File

A menu bar app that records what is on screen

TimeLapze is described as a minimalist menu bar application for creating screen and camera timelapses while keeping file sizes manageable. The setting is macOS, and the interface is a menu bar utility rather than a full window, so the application stays out of the way while it records. That matters for a screen recording tool: the recorder itself is on screen, so a conventional window would end up in the footage. Two capture sources are supported, the display itself and a camera, and the feature list says the camera path records a webcam or phone with the same frame rate and camera speed as the screen path. The customisation controls are the ones you would expect to want, covering frame rate, quality and the speed multiple applied to the result.

The color problem Apple's recorder creates

The most interesting claim in the project is not about timelapses but about color. The feature list puts color accuracy first, with the summary that what you see is what you get, and the introduction says this prevents washed-out, photocopied-looking recordings. The footnote explains the mechanism. Apple's screen recorder converts the display's color space from DCI_P3 to sRGB, and that subtle conversion makes the output unsuitable for color-sensitive work, with a linked discussion on the subject of inaccurate colors in desktop recording. The same footnote points out that HDR video still struggles with persistent overexposure issues in screenshots. The project positions itself against that behaviour rather than describing a general quality preference, which is a more testable claim than a marketing line about sharpness.

Recording a single window instead of the whole desktop

The security and privacy feature is the one that separates this from a generic screen recorder. TimeLapze uses the features of `ScreenCaptureKit` to record only certain windows and applications, and the feature list frames the benefit as never leaking bank information in recordings again. The mechanism makes sense because ScreenCaptureKit is the macOS framework that gives an application both the pixel content and the metadata identifying which window, application or display each sample came from. With that in mind, selecting the capture scope is a filter on what the app is allowed to see, rather than a crop applied afterwards. The repository carries a PRIVACY.md file alongside the code of conduct and licence, which is the expected place to read what the app collects and what it does not.

Hardware encoding as the answer to file size

Two features are really one idea. Hardware acceleration is listed as fully utilised hardware accelerated encoding for a lightweight recording experience, and space saving is listed as avoiding the excessive file sizes of high quality video, with a figure of up to 7 GB per hour. The connection is that on a laptop you cannot afford both a high bitrate and a long recording, and a naive screen recorder trades file size for frame rate. The tool here compresses through the hardware encoder, so the cost of keeping the picture intact is lower. The camera path shares the frame rate and speed settings with the screen path, which means a face cam inset over a coding session keeps pace with the screen rather than running at a different rate and drifting.

Installing it without a build step

There are three installation routes and none of them require a compiler. The recommended one is the App Store, where the app is listed as Timelapse under the name TimeLapze, so the store listing and the repository name differ slightly. The second is Homebrew, which is a single command.

brew install timelapze

The third is a direct download from the releases page. You download `TimeLapze.zip`, and if Chrome or Safari warns you about the file you ignore the warning, then extract the archive to get `TimeLapze.app` and move it to your `Applications` folder. The existence of the Homebrew formula, which lives in the repository as `timelapze.rb`, is the detail worth noting for anyone who wants to script their own setup or manage the app across machines.

Building the app yourself from the Xcode project

Development happens in Xcode, and the repository is laid out for it. You clone the repository and open the project file.

git clone https://github.com/wkaisertexas/ScreenTimeLapse
cd ScreenTimeLapse
open TimeLapze.xcodeproj

After cloning you need to allow the app to be built for local signing, which is the usual Xcode step for a project that ships without a developer certificate. The top level confirms the shape of the project: `TimeLapze.xcodeproj/` holds the project definition, `TimeLapze/` holds the app sources, and there are `TimeLapzeTests/` and `TimeLapzeUITests/` directories, so there are both unit tests and interface tests. There is also a `.swift-format` file, which is the configuration for Swift formatting, and a `typos.toml` for a spell checker. The two agent instruction files, AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, sit next to the source, which suggests the repository is set up for AI-assisted contributions.

The framework stack and what it implies

The tech stack is four Apple frameworks and each one does a specific job. SwiftUI provides the interface. `ScreenCaptureKit` supplies the capture, which as noted is what enables selective recording and is also where the color accuracy behaviour comes from. AVFoundation handles the media side, and CoreMedia deals with the timing and sample buffers. The consequences of that stack are worth spelling out. Because capture runs through ScreenCaptureKit, this is a macOS application in practice, and the documented deployment path is a Mac App Store listing plus a Homebrew formula for the direct download. Because the app writes through AVFoundation and CoreMedia, the output is a normal video file that any editor can open, and there is no proprietary container to reverse engineer later. The same stack also explains why a webcam path exists without a second media stack: the camera is just another AVFoundation source.

Release cadence and what the licence allows

The release history shows a project that shipped, then kept refining. Version 1.0.0 was the initial release on 2023-11-08, version 1.2.0 arrived on 2024-03-26 with smaller file sizes, onboarding, a new logo, translations and bug fixes, and version 1.2.2 landed on 2024-12-05 with changes aimed at better video quality, quality of life improvements and more translation updates. The last push was on 2026-04-02, so there is no recent release tag to point at, and anyone installing should expect the App Store or Homebrew version rather than a fresh build from the repository. The licence is MIT, which is permissive enough to fork, modify and redistribute, subject to keeping the copyright notice, though the App Store distribution adds its own terms on top of that for the binary people actually download.

Editorial conclusion

TimeLapze fits a macOS user who records long screen sessions for progress notes or time-lapse videos and is tired of washed out captures and enormous files, or who needs to record a single window instead of the whole display. It is the wrong choice if you are on another platform, since the app is macOS only and built on ScreenCaptureKit, or if you need HDR handling, which the project describes as still problematic in screen recording generally. Before you record anything sensitive, set the capture scope to the windows you actually want and confirm that excluded windows are blacked out rather than merely cropped.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: MIT
2. Project website
3. README
4. Releases
5. wkaisertexas/ScreenTimeLapse on GitHub