How to Export a Procreate Timelapse (and Record in Full HD)

Procreate has been recording you this whole time. Every artwork keeps a video of itself being made, from the first stroke to the last, and getting that video onto Instagram takes about four taps. Here's how Freya teaches it in her courses, including the trick for when the timelapse isn't enough and you want a real-time HD recording instead.

Watch Your Replay First

Open any artwork, tap Actions (the wrench), and go to Video. The first item is Time-lapse Replay.

Tap it and you'll see your whole drawing build itself from start to finish. You can drag left and right with a finger to scrub the video forward and backward. Freya admits she drags it back and forth just for fun, and honestly, it is fun. It's also useful: watching your own replay shows you where you spent your time and where a painting went wrong.

Below the replay sits a switch for Time-lapse Recording. It's on by default for every canvas. Freya's advice: if your device is running slowly and you keep a lot of files, you can turn it off. Recording costs storage, and old practice files don't all need videos.

Exporting the Timelapse

In the same menu, tap Export Time-lapse Video. Procreate offers two lengths, and the choice matters more than it looks.

Full Length exports the entire process, sped up. In Freya's lesson, a rose painting comes out at about two minutes. She's careful to point out that even full length is not real time: the video shows the whole workflow in high speed, just less compressed than the alternative.

30 Seconds squeezes the whole process, start to finish, into exactly half a minute. Procreate speeds it up however much it needs to. Freya recommends this one for social media, since it's the length Instagram and Facebook actually favor.

1. Tap Actions > Video > Export Time-lapse Video.
2. Choose Full Length or 30 Seconds.
3. Tap Save Video, and it lands in your photo album.
4. Share straight from Photos. If the app you want isn't in the share row, tap the last icon and scroll: every video-capable app on your device is in there.

One thing to check after saving: open the video from your photo album before you post it. Freya does this on camera every single time, for both lengths, because the export happens silently and it's worth thirty seconds to see what people will actually watch.

If you draw on your phone, the same feature exists in Procreate Pocket. Freya covers it in her Pocket beginner course: it lives under Modify > Actions > Video > Export time-lapse video, with the identical Full Length and 30 Seconds choices.

When the Timelapse Isn't Enough

The timelapse has two built-in limits: it's always sped up, and it only records the canvas. It won't show your zooms, your menu taps, or your brush picking, which is exactly what people want to see in a tutorial-style video.

Freya's answer is the screen recorder that ships with every iPad and iPhone.

"The time-lapse video might not be very clear, and it's also sped up. If we want to record while we're working in full HD, there's a way to record it."

Freya, in the Procreate Pocket course lesson "How to Record Your Drawing Video on Your Phone"

Setting Up Screen Recording

This is a one-time setup in your device settings, not in Procreate.

1. Open Settings on your iPad or iPhone.
2. Go to Control Center, then Customize Controls.
3. Find Screen Recording in the list below and tap the plus sign. It moves to your included controls.

Now swipe down from the top right corner of the screen to open Control Center, and the record button (a filled circle) is there waiting.

Recording Your Process in HD

1. Open your Procreate canvas.
2. Swipe down from the top right corner and tap Screen Recording.
3. Paint. Zoom in, zoom out, switch brushes. The recording captures every movement exactly as you see it.
4. When you're done, tap the red bar at the top of the screen (or the Control Center icon again) and choose Stop.
5. The video saves to Photos. Tap Edit there and cut the clip down to only the part you want, which usually means trimming the fumble at the start and your reach for the stop button at the end.

Freya highlights the payoff in her Masterclass: the resolution is really high, exactly what you see while painting in Procreate. That makes screen recording the right choice for process videos where you narrate, teach, or show the interface, while the timelapse export stays the fast option for satisfying before-and-after posts.

Which One Should You Post?

Use the 30-second timelapse for feeds and stories: zero effort, perfect length. Use Full Length when the process itself is the point and two or three minutes of sped-up painting will hold attention. Use screen recording when people need to see how you did it, not just that you did.

And post them. The recording exists either way; sharing it is free.

These lessons come from Freya's Procreate Masterclass and her Procreate Pocket beginner course, where exporting sits alongside everything else the app can do: file formats, layer exports, animation, and the painting itself. If you keep finding features you didn't know Procreate had, the Masterclass is a guided tour through all of them 🎨