# Frame timeline

A region capture isn't just one frame. hypershot keeps a short burst of the
moments leading up to your capture, and the editor's frame timeline lets you
pick the exact one you want.

## How frames are kept

While the region capture overlay is open, hypershot records the screen in the
background and keeps a rolling buffer of the most recent frames. When you release the mouse, the frames from the last
1 s (the default) before the release become the
capture's frames.

- **Change the length** in **Settings → Captures → Capture window**
  (0–5 s). At **0** (shown as
  **Off**) every capture is a single frame — see
  [Capture Window](/docs/hypershot/settings/preferences#capture-window)
- **Duplicates are dropped** — identical and near-identical frames collapse
  into one, so a static screen or a paused video doesn't produce a timeline
  of copies. If nothing changed, you get a single frame and no timeline
- **Frozen captures are single frames** — if you froze the screen (see
  [Hold to Freeze](/docs/hypershot/capturing/hold-to-freeze)), the capture is
  that frozen frame

Captures with more than one frame show a frame-count badge on their card in
the [preview folder](/docs/hypershot/capturing/capture-history).

## Opening the timeline

The editor opens on the **last** frame — the moment you released. To pick a
different one:

1. Click the **Timeline** button in the toolbar (or press **F**). The button
   only appears when the capture has more than one frame
2. A strip of frame thumbnails slides up above the toolbar, with a playhead on
   the current frame

Clicking an annotation or an empty part of the canvas switches back to the
Select tool and hides the strip.

## Choosing a frame

- **Click** a thumbnail to jump to that frame
- **Drag** along the strip to scrub — the canvas updates as the playhead moves
- **← / →** step one frame back or forward while the Timeline tool is active

Changing the frame is undoable — a whole scrub counts as one step.

## Annotations and frames

Annotations aren't tied to a frame: they stay on the canvas as you switch
frames, so you can draw first and pick the frame afterwards.

## What gets exported

Copy, export, share, drag, and [pin](/docs/hypershot/exporting/pin-to-screen)
all use the **current** frame — whichever one the playhead is on. Saving the
capture as a [.hypercapture file](/docs/hypershot/exporting/hypercapture-files)
keeps every frame along with the one you chose, so you can reopen it and pick
again.

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*See also: [Area Capture](/docs/hypershot/capturing/area-capture) | [Hold to Freeze](/docs/hypershot/capturing/hold-to-freeze)*

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From https://hypernuclear.com/docs/hypershot/editing/frame-timeline/