Lens keeps two views of what you have captured: a compact timeline in the popup for the active project, and a master timeline on the dashboard covering every project.
1. The popup timeline
Captures are grouped by day, newest first, with the time down the left. Each row shows a thumbnail, the file name, its type and the page title.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Thumbnail | Opens a larger preview with the page URL and capture time. The preview shows the real file, so a GIF plays |
| Copy | Puts the image on the clipboard |
| Rename | Renames the file on disk and in the metadata |
| Delete | Removes the entry from the timeline |
| Search | Filters by file name, page title or URL |
| JSON | Exports project_metadata.json for the active project |
2. The dashboard
Open the dashboard from the arrow icon at the top right of the popup, or the gear beside it to land straight on Settings. It has four sections.
- Projects — every project as a card with its folder, capture count, last capture and access state.
- Timeline — every capture across all projects, grouped by project.
- Guides — every step-by-step guide, with import and export for the whole set. See Guides.
- Settings — all preferences, plus your keyboard shortcuts.
3. Searching and filtering
The master timeline's filter bar stays fixed as you scroll and combines free-text search across name, page title and URL, a project filter, and a type filter for PNG or GIF. The count on the right reflects what is currently shown.
4. Grouping
The master timeline is grouped by project by default. Projects are ordered by their most recent capture, so whatever you are working on now is at the top, and captures stay newest-first inside each one.
Group by day in the filter bar switches to date headings instead — useful for answering "what did I do yesterday" rather than "show me this project". Each card shows whichever of the two the heading does not: the date inside a project group, the project name inside a day group.
Your choice is remembered, so the timeline opens the way you left it.
5. Exporting
- Export timeline JSON on the dashboard writes every capture across all projects to a single file.
- JSON in the popup, or Export JSON on a project card, writes that one project's project_metadata.json.
6. Thumbnails, and the file behind them
What the timeline shows beside each entry is a small JPEG of the first frame, held in extension storage so the list loads instantly. That is why a GIF sits still in the popup timeline and in the dashboard grid, and why a screenshot there is thumbnail-sized rather than full resolution.
Open one and the preview reads the actual file out of the project folder instead: full size, and a recording that plays. Where no folder is linked, or its access has lapsed, the stored thumbnail stays up rather than the preview failing.
Settings > Clear cached previews empties that cache. Files already written to disk are untouched — only the thumbnails go, and the timeline then shows a placeholder icon in their place until you open one.