Questions
Questions and answers
What Time Portal is, what it costs, where the photographs come from, and how it differs from the other maps of old photographs.
How can I see what my street looked like a hundred years ago?
Open a map that holds geotagged historical photographs and search your address. Time Portal is one: about 2.3 million photographs taken between 1826 and 2000, each pinned to the coordinates it was taken at rather than to the city it belongs to. Most pins also carry the direction the camera faced, so you can stand where the photographer stood and look the way they were looking. It works in a browser at map.timeportal.app with nothing to install, and as an app on iPhone and iPad.
Is there an app that shows historical photos on a map?
Several. Time Portal is worldwide and free to browse, with a year scale you drag to narrow the era and a camera that re-takes the old shot. Historypin is the long-running crowdsourced one. On This Spot is built around curated walking tours in North American cities. What Was Here and OldNYC are narrower still. Google Street View has a history slider, but it only goes back to 2007 — for anything older you need photographs, not street imagery. The differences are set out one by one here.
Is Time Portal free?
Yes, to download and to use. The map, the search and the year scale are free, and so is every photograph from 1955 onward — no account, no card, no trial. A one-time purchase or a subscription called Pro unlocks the rest of the archive back to 1826, plus the Then & Now camera. One purchase covers both the app and the web. Prices are set per country, so the App Store quotes them where you buy.
How many photographs does Time Portal have, and from which years?
About 2.3 million published photographs, taken between 1826 and 2000. The archive keeps growing, and the app can tell you when new photographs appear near a place you follow.
Which cities and countries does it cover?
The map is worldwide, but the coverage is not even. It is dense in large cities and across Europe, and thinner in places where fewer historical photographs have been digitised and located. The honest way to find out is to search your own address — the map answers straight away, and it costs nothing to look.
Where do the photographs come from?
From PastVu, a community archive where people upload historical photographs and place them on the map at the spot they were taken. Time Portal is the map, the camera and the apps built around that archive rather than a separate collection of its own. The photographs are shown as the archive holds them — nothing is colourised, upscaled or generated.
Can I take a “then and now” photograph myself?
Yes, on iPhone and iPad. The camera lays the original over your live viewfinder in one of three ways — as a faded ghost, as traced edges, or split down the middle — so you can line up a roofline or a doorway before you tap the shutter. Both frames then share as a single image. The Then & Now camera is part of Pro.
Is there an Android version of Time Portal?
Not as a native app. The apps are iPhone and iPad only, and need iOS 26 or later. The web map at map.timeportal.app works in any modern browser, Android included — you get the archive, the search and the year scale, but not the camera.
Do I need an account?
No, not to look around. Signing in exists so that saved photographs, the places you follow and a Pro purchase can follow you between devices. Browsing the free years needs neither an account nor a card.
How is Time Portal different from Google Street View’s history slider?
Street View shows Google’s own camera cars, which start in 2007. Time Portal shows photographs taken by people standing in the street, the oldest from 1826. Different centuries, different sources, and only one of them can show you the building that was demolished before Google ever drove past.
How is Time Portal different from Historypin?
Both put historical photographs on a world map. Time Portal stores the direction the camera faced along with the coordinates, so a pin tells you which way to look; it tints pins by year and gives you a two-handled scale to narrow the era; and it has a re-photography camera on iPhone that overlays the old frame on the live view. Historypin has run since 2010, is strongest where its community has been busiest, and has had no mobile app since 2015.
Can I use Time Portal without installing anything?
Yes. map.timeportal.app is the whole archive in a browser, on a phone or a laptop, with no account and nothing to install. The iPhone and iPad app adds the Then & Now camera and notifications for places you follow.
Still unanswered? Write to [email protected]. Or start with the archive itself — the map is free to browse, and the app is free to download.