How does Play Through Time work?

What it does

Play Through Time reveals your events in the order they happened, sweeping a playhead across the years so your life fills in as you watch. It is the closest thing to seeing your timeline being written.

It changes nothing about your data — it is purely a way of looking at what you already have. Find the "Play through time" button below the timeline scrubber on the Timeline view.

The controls

Once playback starts you get Play/Pause, a Reset button to return to the beginning, and speed options of 0.5×, 1×, and 2×. The year the playhead has reached is shown alongside them, and Replay appears when it finishes.

The rest of the app chrome fades back while playback is running so the timeline has the screen to itself. Press ✕ Exit to leave and return to the normal view.

When it is useful

It works well for showing someone your timeline in person, for spotting how densely one decade is documented compared to another, and for noticing gaps — long quiet stretches are much more obvious when the timeline draws itself than when you scroll it.

If your system is set to reduce motion, the reveal respects that setting and skips the animated transitions.

Rules of Thumb

• Set your eras up first — watching the timeline fill in era by era reads better than raw events alone.
• Use 2× on a long timeline and 0.5× when you are showing a specific stretch to someone.

Common Mistakes

• Looking for it on a phone — playback runs on the desktop timeline view.
• Expecting playback to filter anything; it reveals whatever is currently on your timeline, including hidden-lane settings you already applied.