For Families Preparing a Memorial
Upload the photos. We work out when each was taken. Press play.
On this device
June 1979
“The whole family on the front steps”
How it works, start to finish
Option 1 · Nothing to install
On this device
4
March 1962
“Ruth and Dad on the porch”
3
The slideshow is built into Timeline Scan, on the web and in the iPhone and iPad app. Nothing to export, no other app to learn.
It opens on the oldest photo and moves forward, decade by decade, to the most recent. Photos we could not date play at the end, and one tap leaves them out.
Captions are off to begin with, so the photograph fills the screen. Turn them on and each photo carries its date and the handwriting we read off the back.
In the iPhone and iPad app, tap Save for offline before you leave the house, and the slideshow plays with no internet at all. Funeral home wifi is a guest network in a basement; this is the part that means it does not matter.
It holds each photo for five seconds, adjustable from three to thirty. It repeats on its own, so it can run quietly through a viewing without anyone tending it.
Illustration of the built-in slideshow, using sample photos. Prefer to play it somewhere else? Take the ordered folder or send it to Google Photos instead.
Option 2 · Hand off the files
Building it in PowerPoint, Canva, or iMovie, or handing everything to the funeral home? The files come renamed so name order is date order, ready for a USB stick.
Every photo in one folder, renamed so the first file is the earliest photo and the last is the most recent.
Slideshow apps and digital frames play files in name order, so the order is already done.
Prefer to hand-pick from each era? Year folders make it easy to pull a few photos from every stage of a life, so no decade gets left out.
Pick the layout at download time, and re-download in another layout free. Every option is on the file download page; keeping the collection organized afterward is folders by year.
Option 3 · Already live in Google Photos
Family already lives in Google Photos? We put the dated photos straight into an album there, already in order, and relatives can watch from anywhere.
When dating finishes, connect your Google account and give the album a name. Every dated photo lands inside it: no ZIP files, no second upload.
The corrected date is written inside each photo, so the album runs in life order on its own: childhood first, recent years last, every era in between.
Open the album, tap the three-dot menu, choose Slideshow. It plays full screen, casts to a TV, and simply advances every few seconds with nothing to fiddle with.
Send the album link and relatives can watch from anywhere, save copies, and add their own photos before the service.
Illustrative recreation of a Google Photos album, using sample photos. Curious about the details? See exactly what transfers to Google Photos.
The week nobody plans for
Every guide gives the same advice: put the photos in chronological order. None of them says how, with hundreds of undated prints and a deadline. That's the part Timeline Scan does for you.
Three steps. One of them is yours.
How the dating works Handwriting on the backs, lab-printed dates, and clues in each picture. Every estimate lands on a timeline you can review and adjust before the service.
What the memorial guides agree on
Every memorial guide lands on the same recipe. If you're deciding tonight, use this:
| Decision | What works | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Number of photos | 60–80 | Enough to tell a whole life without losing the room; fewer is fine, just hold each photo longer |
| Time per photo | 4–5 seconds | Long enough to recognize faces, short enough to keep the story moving |
| Total length | 5–8 minutes | About one or two songs; longer versions can loop at the viewing or reception |
| Music | 1–2 songs they loved | Gentle and personal beats generic; match the tone of the service |
| Order | Chronological, oldest to newest | Guests instinctively follow a life story from beginning to end. This is the part Timeline Scan automates |
| Ending | One recent portrait, held longer | A quiet, dignified place for the room to rest |
These numbers reflect the consistent guidance of memorial slideshow guides from Animoto and Funeral.com, among others.
One more thing the guides agree on: choose photos from every era. That's much easier once they sit in front of you already in order: the gaps show themselves. And the free trial, with no credit card, covers most of a typical service slideshow.
Letting someone else build it
Funeral homes ask for the same thing everywhere: your photos, digitized, chosen, and in play order, a day or two before the service. The oldest-to-newest folder is exactly that.
Made for a hard week
A trial-size batch is dated in minutes; larger collections finish in hours, not days. Scan this afternoon, hand over the folder tomorrow.
Same pixels, same quality. The corrected date is written inside each file, so the photos also land in the right year in Google or Apple Photos afterward.
Plain files on your own computer, copied for every sibling. No subscription is needed to keep what you download.
Common questions
Most funeral-industry guides land on 60 to 80 photos: at 4 to 5 seconds per photo that plays for 5 to 8 minutes, about one or two songs. Fewer photos is fine. Simply hold each one on screen a little longer. If the slideshow will loop quietly during a viewing or reception, more photos work well.
Chronological, oldest to newest, is what nearly every guide recommends and what guests instinctively follow: a life told from childhood to the most recent years. Grouping by theme (family, work, travel) also works, but chronological order is the default for a reason. Timeline Scan puts scanned photos in chronological order automatically, even when no one wrote dates on them.
Timeline Scan estimates when each photo was taken by reading handwriting on the backs of prints, dates printed by the photo lab or camera, and clues in the picture itself, such as clothing, cars, and rooms, plus the photos that sat nearby in the same album or envelope. You can review the timeline and adjust any photo before downloading. Curious about the details? See how we fix scanned photo dates.
Yes. The slideshow is built into Timeline Scan, on the web and in the iPhone and iPad app: it starts at the oldest photo and moves forward in time, holding each photo for five seconds by default (three to thirty if you prefer), with optional captions showing each date and the handwriting from the back of the print. It repeats on its own, so it can run quietly through a viewing.
Yes, on an iPhone or iPad. Open the archive, tap Slideshow, and tap Save for offline before you leave the house: every photo is copied onto the device and the slideshow plays with no internet at all. Worth doing even if you have been promised wifi, since guest networks in function rooms are the least reliable part of the day.
Yes. Timeline Scan can send your dated photos straight into a Google Photos album, with no ZIP file and no second upload. The corrected date is written inside each photo, so the album runs oldest to newest on its own. Open the album, tap the three-dot menu, and choose Slideshow: it plays full screen on a phone or laptop and can be cast to a TV. Share the album link and relatives can watch from anywhere and add their own photos before the service.
Often, yes. Many funeral homes will assemble a tribute video or play your slideshow on their equipment. What they need from you is the photos, digitized, chosen, and in play order, usually a day or two before the service. Timeline Scan's oldest-to-newest folder is built for exactly that hand-off: the files are renamed so alphabetical order is date order.
Fast enough. Photographing a shoebox of prints with a phone takes an afternoon, and flatbed or app scans work too. Once uploaded, a trial-size batch is dated in minutes and larger collections typically finish in hours, not days, so most families go from shoebox to ordered folder in a single day. If you're near Lehi, Utah, we can scan the prints for you as well.
You can try it free with no credit card, enough photos for a small slideshow, and see your own photos dated and put in order before paying anything. After that, pricing is per photo dated; see the pricing page for current rates.
Start with free photos, no credit card required. See your photos in order before you decide anything.
Try Photos FreeGoogle Photos is a trademark of Google LLC. The album shown above is an illustrative recreation, not a screenshot of Google's product. Timeline Scan is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.
