The Free Face Aligned Selfie Timelapse App for iPhone

Is there an iPhone app that turns daily selfies into a timelapse without my face jumping around?

The jitter you get from a naive photo-a-day project comes from framing drift: your face lands a little higher, lower, or more to one side each day, and played back fast that reads as shaking. SelfieStory is a face aligned selfie timelapse app, which means it does the lining-up for you. It anchors your face to the same position in every frame, so when the photos run together the head barely moves and the change you actually want to see (aging, a beard filling in, weight coming off, a pregnancy, a kid getting taller) is what stands out. It launched on iOS, carries 254 upvotes on Product Hunt, and is listed in the Photography category.

How the face alignment keeps your timelapse steady

Capture is a two-tap loop. You take the selfie, the app shows an Approve This Selfie? preview, and you keep it or retake. Because the alignment is computed from your face, you do not have to nail the framing yourself; a rough, arm's-length selfie is enough, and the app pulls it into line with the rest. That is the difference between SelfieStory and apps that only give you a faint ghost overlay of yesterday's photo and leave the lining-up to your own eye.

What “face aligned” actually means for a daily selfie

Alignment here is not a filter or an AI guess about your future face. It is a geometric correction: the app finds your face in each photo and transforms the image so that face sits in a consistent spot, at a consistent scale, across the whole set. The payoff shows up in the finished clip, where a date can be burned into the corner and the face stays put from the first frame to the last.

Where your photos live: on device, nothing uploaded

Daily face photos are about as personal as a photo gets, which makes on device selfie timelapse privacy worth checking rather than assuming. On Apple's App Privacy panel, SelfieStory is marked “Data Not Collected,” meaning the developer states it gathers nothing from the app, and the product site puts it plainly: your photos stay on your device, never shared or uploaded. That is a stronger position than several rivals that also say “local storage” in their marketing while their own privacy labels disclose usage or advertising data, a gap the comparison below spells out.

Build your story: a daily selfie plus your old photos

The home screen is a dated grid of your captures, so the habit is visible at a glance and the calendar becomes the motivation. The import path matters just as much: if you already have years of front-facing photos in your camera roll, SelfieStory can pull them in and align them to the same face position as your new daily shots, so your story can start years ago instead of on install day. It aligns the imports; it does not claim to auto-sort them by date, so treat ordering as something you may still guide.

Who SelfieStory is for

• Long-haul self-documenters tracking aging, hair or beard growth, or a body transformation over months and years, where alignment is what makes the difference visible.

• Privacy-conscious users who want a face-photo habit that never leaves the phone, with a “Data Not Collected” label to back it up.

• People with a back-catalog of selfies who want to fold years of existing photos into one continuous timelapse rather than starting from zero.

It is a weaker fit if you are on Android today, since the app is iOS only with an Android waitlist, or if you specifically want AI age-progression art rather than a real record of your own face. SelfieStory documents what actually happened, one day at a time; it does not invent a future you.

How SelfieStory compares to other selfie timelapse apps

Where AgeLapse fits (free and open source)

AgeLapse is the honest alternative to name up front. It is free with no ads and no paywall, its code is public on GitHub, it auto-stabilizes on the eyes, and it is also labeled “Data Not Collected.” If open source is a requirement for you, it is the pick, and this article will happily point you there. SelfieStory's case against it is not price, since both cost nothing. It is the rest of the package: a simple capture-and- approve daily loop, daily reminders, date-stamped 4K export, and one-tap import of your old photos, in an app aimed at people who want the habit more than the internals.

The free apps that quietly collect data

The rest are worth a caveat. FaceLapse is free to download but watermarks the free export and charges $4.99 a month or $14.99 once to remove it, and its privacy label lists advertising and usage data. Dayloop lets you make one sequence free, then asks for a PRO subscription that runs from $2.99 a week to $59.99 lifetime, and it discloses tracking. Daily Selfie is free with a $3.99 a month tier and, per its own privacy panel, collects data used to track you across other companies' apps for third-party advertising, which sits awkwardly next to its local-storage pitch. TimeShutter avoids all of that with a straight $0.99 buy-once price, but it lines shots up with a manual guideline overlay rather than aligning them for you.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. 1

   SelfieStory

   The product site: daily selfies that automatically align for a time-lapse video, import and auto-align of past photos, daily reminders, local storage with the line "your photos stay on your device, never shared or uploaded", and an Android waitlist.

2. 2

   SelfieStory on the App Store

   The maker’s listing: price "Free" with no In-App Purchases section, an App Privacy panel of "Data Not Collected", and developer Rohil Agarwal. The source for the free price, no-paywall, and privacy claims.

3. 3

   AgeLapse on the App Store

   The free, open-source rival: no ads or paywall, auto-stabilizes on the eyes, all processing local, "Data Not Collected". Its code is public at github.com/hugocornellier/agelapse. The basis for the open-source FAQ and the comparison row.

4. 4

   FaceLapse on the App Store

   Free to download with a Pro tier at $4.99/month or $14.99 lifetime; the free tier watermarks the export. Its App Privacy panel discloses Identifiers, Usage, and Advertising data. Used for the free-versus-paid comparison.

5. 5

   Dayloop and Daily Selfie on the App Store

   Dayloop is free but gates more than one sequence behind a PRO subscription ($2.99/week up to $59.99 lifetime) and discloses tracking data; Daily Selfie (id6756184981) is free with a $3.99/month Pro tier and discloses data used to track you for third-party advertising. Both anchor the "free apps that collect data" point.

6. 6

   TimeShutter on the App Store

   A $0.99 buy-once daily-selfie app that lines shots up with a manual guideline overlay rather than automatic alignment; the developer has provided no privacy details to Apple. The one-time-purchase point of comparison.