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When you open Timeline-O-Tron, you start with an empty timeline. Click the + button in the toolbar (or press ⌘N) to add your first event. Give it a year, a description, and you're off. Add a color and some tags if you like — or keep it simple. There's no wrong way to start a timeline.

Want to see what a finished timeline looks like? Click any of the built-in examples in the sidebar: Space Missions, Beatles Albums, or Hitchcock Films.

Timelines are saved as standard JSON files — human-readable, portable, and future-proof. Use ⌘S to save, ⌘⇧S for Save As, and ⌘O to open. Your five most recent files appear in the sidebar for quick access.

The app tracks unsaved changes and will ask before you accidentally lose work.

Three formats, each with its own superpower:

• JSON (⌘⇧E) — The native format. Pretty-printed, portable, and easy to parse programmatically.
• CSV (⌘⌥E) — Opens beautifully in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. All events sorted by year.
• HTML (⌘⌥H) — Generates a fully interactive, standalone website. Zoom, pan, click events for details. Works offline, works from a USB stick, works on your phone. No web server needed.

Open AI → Configure AI (or press ⌘⇧K). Choose your provider — OpenAI (ChatGPT) or Anthropic (Claude) — and enter your API key. The key is stored securely in macOS Keychain, never in plaintext.

Then open AI → Generate Timeline (⌘⇧G) and choose a mode:

• From Topic: Type any subject ("History of jazz", "Ancient Roman emperors", "Marvel Cinematic Universe") and the AI researches and builds a timeline for you.
• From Text: Paste an article, essay, or document, and the AI extracts the key dated events into a timeline.

Typical cost is a few cents per generation. You use your own API key, so you have full control.

Yes! Timeline-O-Tron runs natively on iPhone and iPad. Your timelines sync across devices via iCloud, so you can start research on your Mac and review your timelines on the go.

Each event can optionally have one color (from a palette of ten) and any number of tags. Both the event list and the timeline visualization can be filtered by color or tag — so you can color-code eras, categories, or themes and then focus on just the ones you care about.

For example, the Space Missions sample uses red for Mercury, orange for Gemini, and blue for Apollo. Toggle off Mercury and Gemini to focus on the Moon missions.

Absolutely. Enter the year and toggle the era to BCE. The timeline handles negative years natively — the Great Pyramid (2560 BCE) and the Moon landing (1969 CE) can coexist on the same timeline, rendered correctly and proportionally.

On iOS, tap the ruler icon to enter Measure mode, then tap two events to see the time between them. If both events have specific dates, you'll get a result down to the day. Otherwise, it shows the difference in years.