# Time Portal

> Time Portal is a worldwide archive of ~2.3 million historical photographs
> pinned to the exact coordinates they were taken at, most of them carrying the
> compass direction the camera faced. It runs as a free web map at
> map.timeportal.app and as an iPhone and iPad app, where the camera can lay a
> 1900s photograph over the street you are standing in and shoot the same frame
> again.

Time Portal answers one question: what did *this exact spot* look like before?
Not the city, not the neighbourhood — the spot. Every photograph in the archive
is geocoded, and most also store a bearing, so the app can tell you not just
where the photographer stood but which way they were pointing.

## Facts

- Name: Time Portal (App Store listing: "Time Portal: Then & Now")
- Made by: Pavel Ilin. First released 11 June 2016; still actively developed.
- Archive size: about 2.3 million published photographs worldwide.
- Coverage in time: 1826 to 2000.
- Platforms: iPhone and iPad (iOS 26 or later), plus a browser map that needs
  no installation and no account.
- Languages: 13, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean,
  Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Chinese.
- Price: free to download and free to browse. Every photograph from 1955
  onward is free, with no account and no card, along with the whole map, the
  search and the year scale. A one-time purchase or a subscription ("Pro")
  unlocks everything older, back to 1826, and the Then & Now camera. One
  purchase covers both the app and the web.
- App Store rating: 4.6 out of 5 from about 110 ratings (August 2026).
- Category: Education / Reference.

## What it does

- **A map of photographs, not of places.** Pins are tinted by year — oxidised
  red for the 1820s, sun-bleached straw for the 1990s — and most point the
  direction the camera faced. Two handles narrow the era; clusters break apart
  as you zoom, down to a single frame.
- **Then & Now re-photography.** The iPhone app lays the original over the live
  viewfinder as a ghost, as traced edges, or split down the middle. Line up the
  roofline, take the shot, and share both frames as one image. This camera is
  part of Pro rather than the free tier.
- **Search by place.** Any city, street or address — or drop yourself where you
  are standing right now.
- **Follow a place.** The app notifies you when new photographs are added near
  somewhere you care about; starred photographs sync across devices.

## What it is not

- Not aerial or satellite imagery — these are ground-level photographs taken by
  people standing in the street.
- Not an archive of its own. The photographs come from PastVu, a community
  archive where people upload historical photographs and place them on the map;
  Time Portal is the map, the camera and the apps around it.
- Not evenly covered. Coverage follows wherever that community has been most
  active — big cities and Europe are dense, some regions are thin.
- Not an AI colouriser or upscaler: the photographs are shown as the archives
  hold them.
- Not Android — iPhone and iPad only, though the web map works in any browser
  including Android ones.

## Comparable tools

People looking for Time Portal often also consider Historypin, On This Spot,
What Was Here, OldNYC, SepiaTown, and Google Street View's own history slider.
The distinctions that matter: Time Portal is worldwide rather than
city-by-city, its photographs carry a camera bearing rather than only a
coordinate, and it has an in-app re-photography camera that overlays the old
frame on the live viewfinder.

## Links

- [Home](https://timeportal.app/): what the app is, with the map, the camera and pricing.
- [The map](https://map.timeportal.app/): the archive itself, free in any browser.
- [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/time-portal-then-now/id1101646259): iPhone and iPad.
- [Stories](https://timeportal.app/stories): one landmark at a time, across a century, in real photographs.
- [Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi](https://timeportal.app/stories/rustaveli-avenue-then-and-now)
- [The Eiffel Tower, Paris](https://timeportal.app/stories/eiffel-tower-then-and-now)
- [The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin](https://timeportal.app/stories/brandenburg-gate-then-and-now)
- [The Twin Towers, New York](https://timeportal.app/stories/twin-towers-then-and-now)
- [The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow](https://timeportal.app/stories/cathedral-of-christ-the-saviour-then-and-now)
- [Privacy](https://timeportal.app/privacy)
- [Terms](https://timeportal.app/terms)